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EBay Inc. is using grid computing to deliver online auction services to millions of users. Paul Strong, the company's distinguished research scientist, said the biggest technology issue facing eBay is managing its shared grid infrastructure, which is spread across more than 15,000 servers. Instead of managing individual servers, eBay wants its systems administrators to manage aggregations of servers, a process that would be eased considerably with grid standards. In a recent interview with Computerworld, Strong discussed the need for such standards and eBay's role in creating them as a member of the Open Grid Forum.
Does the lack of strong grid standards slow the availability of off-the-shelf tools? There are bits that we can buy. We use certain off-the-shelf components in our infrastructure, but we tend to have to be our own integrator.
How can standards help large...