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Computational Science, Engineering & Technology Series
ISSN 1759-3158
CSETS: 21
PARALLEL, DISTRIBUTED AND GRID COMPUTING FOR ENGINEERING
Edited by: B.H.V. Topping, P. Iványi
Chapter 6

A Vision of a Computing Environment for the Web 2.0 Era

M. Dolenc

Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Full Bibliographic Reference for this chapter
M. Dolenc, "A Vision of a Computing Environment for the Web 2.0 Era", in B.H.V. Topping, P. Iványi, (Editors), "Parallel, Distributed and Grid Computing for Engineering", Saxe-Coburg Publications, Stirlingshire, UK, Chapter 6, pp 103-116, 2009. doi:10.4203/csets.21.6
Keywords: computing environments, grid technology, cloud computing, software as a service, high-performance computing, high-throughput computing, Web 2.0.

Summary
Existing high-performance and high-throughput computing facilities are currently restricted to elite stake-holders familiar with distributed service infrastructures, programming paradigms, workflow composition systems and their respective security infrastructures. Those less information-technology savvy, are left out of the equation even though they are in great need of different computing infrastructure, sharing resources, collaborating and generating value-added services and knowledge. There is an emergent need for a novel distributed software platform capable of addressing the real-world needs of the scientific and engineering communities and industries by allowing them to exploit distributed resources and solve complex problems through more secure, intuitive and technology-hiding means leveraging both the current networking and advanced computing environments.

Rather then developing a new closed platform solution for providing the above mentioned features the paper examines different existing and emergent technologies [1], including: Web 2.0, cloud computing, grid technology and software as a service. The described end-user scenario focuses on the use of parametric studies in earthquake engineering. The scenario paints a vision for a future computing environment by describing a probabilistic performance assessment of a structure [2] as an example for high-throughput computing environment. The adopted system architecture was selected primarily because it provides a scalable computing solution without the administrative overhead of a local computing cluster, and because it allows users to carry out most of their science with only a web browser.

References
[1]
Gartner, "Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organisations and Users in 2008 and Beyond", URL, 2008.
[2]
M. Dolenc, M. Dolsek, "High-Throughput Computing in Engineering", in M. Papadrakakis, B.H.V. Topping, (Editors), "Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Engineering Computational Technology", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 94, 2008.

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