Grid and cloud computing

Grid and cloud computing environments should consist of interoperating elements ranging from small devices up to supercomputers, to serve communities ranging from individuals to whole industries, and should cover data, information and knowledge.

Standardization is essential to enable so many different pieces of hardware, software, operating systems, databases etc, potentially spread all over the world, to interoperate. Grid and cloud computing technology is widely regarded as a key element in tomorrow's 'network of networks', and is expected to drive the creation of both jobs and commercial products.

ETSI has a long history of partnership experience in the GRID standards community, notably in interoperability testing and Plugtests™.

In June 2006 ETSI technical committee  GRID was created and held its first meeting in September.
TC GRID's task is to address issues associated with the convergence of Information Technology (IT) and telecommunications, paying particular attention initially to the lack of interoperable Grid solutions in situations which involve contributions from both the IT and telecommunications industries.
In 2008, TC GRID undertook a survey of existing stakeholders in the Grid domain, for which the European Commission (EC) provided financial support. A test frame for Grid standards is being developed in collaboration with ETSI's Centre for Testing & Interoperability (CTI).
Meanwhile other work items are being progressed.
There is also an increasing interest in addressing the convergence between ETSI technical committees GRID and TISPAN (Telecommunication and Internet converged Services and Protocols for Advanced Networking).

ETSI technical committee GRID works in collaboration with:

• ETSI TISPAN, ETSI MTS
• ETSI PLUGTESTS™ Service
• OGF (Open Grid Forum)
• Especially the GGF SCRM-CG group (Standards Development Organizations Collaboration on Networked Resources Management) coordinating the standardization efforts of:
  • Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)
  • Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
  • Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)
  • Tele Management Forum (TMF)
  • Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF),
  • International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T)
  • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• DG INSFSO F2, F3 unit
• NESSI European Technology Platform
• IST FP6 GRID Projects
• GSCG: The IST FP6 Grid projects Collaboration Task Co-ordination of Standardization Efforts is fostered and managed by the GRID Standards Co-ordination Group, a forum which comprises representatives from all IST FP6 GRID projects and external experts in GRID standardization

The following is a list of current work items from ETSI technical committee GRID. Please use the ETSI Work Programme to find further related standards.