"High-end" or "high-performance" computing once referred only to supercomputers and software that runs on supercomputers. However, with the advent of a variety of different computing architectural approaches to solving "high-end" computing problems, a better definition might be "a computing system that provides more computing performance, power, or resource than is generally available." One technical approach to high performance computing is Grid Computing, which can be defined as a means of network computing that harnesses the unused processing cycles of numerous computers, or data across a wide number of computers, to solve intensive problems that are often too large for a single computer to handle, such as in life sciences or climate modeling.

Although the grid-computing concept began as experimental research in an R&D environment, a number of identifiable vertical markets also have begun to show an interest in grid computing. These include: life sciences (bioinformatics, drug discovery, document sharing, process outsourcing); energy (gas and oil exploration, data-set visualization); manufacturing (simulation-based test and evaluation, partner collaboration); financial (enhanced performance for intensive tasks like portfolio risk analysis); and, of course, government and R&D (simulation and design, distributed data-base coordination, service utilities, etc.). Although it is early to pinpoint precisely the future size of the grid computing market, several research firms have begun to provide estimates in the $4 to $7 billion range by 2008.

Fairfield Technologies Inc. has significant R&D experience in grid computing. For the past two years, FTI and our expert staff of professionals has been performing advanced scientific grid computing R&D for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce. FTI’s initial research objective was to demonstrate the technical feasibility of grid computing within the NOAA environment by building and validating working "proof of concept" prototypes of a computational grid for sharing NOAA data and computational resources (as well as a compatible, weather-related ontology to integrate a wide variety of weather-related information and facilitate its sharing and re-use). FTI demonstrated that it was feasible, practical, and economical for NOAA to utilize recent advances in grid computing and ontology technologies to meet its complex and challenging mission. Fairfield Technologies’ objective for its current research is to build a more fully-functional prototype grid product to address the need for easier-to-use grid-based supercomputing products across NOAA as a whole.

Fairfield Technologies Inc. is also continuing to work with universities, laboratories, and other Federal agencies on additional grid R&D initiatives.