Study: Grid adoption growing fastest in AP

SINGAPORE--The number of organizations that have, or are planning to adopt grid computing is growing faster in the Asia-Pacific region than the rest of the world, according to a new report.

Commissioned by Oracle, the study showed an 83 percent year-on-year rise in the number of companies in the region that have implemented or plan to implement a grid computing system. In comparison, the rate of grid computing adoption plans in the United States and Europe grew 45 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

When asked if their organizations have implemented or are planning to implement grid computing in the future, 22 percent of the respondents in the Asia-Pacific region indicated positively, followed by 48 percent in the United States, and 32 percent in Europe.

Conducted by research company Quocirca, the survey polled 1,466 senior IT influencers and decision makers globally, 566 of whom were based in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan. Oracle's Grid Computing Index is a biannual study aimed at monitoring organizations' interest and activity surrounding grid computing and related technologies, such as server and storage virtualization.

The index is derived from three measurements within a company: its level of knowledge and interest, foundation readiness and adoption.

Foundation readiness indicates how well businesses standardize their database management and operating systems, as well as application servers--a first step toward grid computing. Knowledge and interest determine if companies understand the benefits of grid computing, while adoption lifecycle assesses the current level of grid deployment and future investments in the technology.

The latest study showed that Asia-Pacific's overall grid index rose to 5.3 from 4.9 in December last year.

In fact, the region improved in all the three areas measured for the index, compared to findings in November last year, with the respondents' knowledge and interest rising from 5.7 to 6.1 and the adoption lifecycle increasing from 2.0 to 2.5.

In addition, the Asia-Pacific region's foundation readiness index is highest in the world--at 7.3, up from 7.1 in November. Europe and the United States scored 6.5 and 7.2 respectively.

However, Asia's knowledge index lags behind its peers worldwide, according to Chris Chelliah, senior director of technology architecture at Oracle Asia-Pacific. Organizations in the United States and Europe displayed higher levels of knowledge and interest in grid computing, where the two regions clocked at 6.8 and 6.3, respectively, in this index measurement.

Describing the low levels of adoption and awareness as "roadblocks", Chelliah said: "Significant work still needs to be done to drive further education across the Asia-Pacific region about the benefits and learnings of grid computing."

Meanwhile, analysis into specific regions showed that Southeast Asian countries--comprising Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore--scored the highest in terms of adoption, with nearly 50 percent of organizations indicating that they have implemented, or are planning to implement a grid computing system.

This was the largest share of planned implementations worldwide, said Oracle.