"The Grid is an emerging infrastructure that will fundamentally change the way we think about-and use-computing. The word Grid is used by analogy with the electric power grid, which provides pervasive access to electricity and has had a dramatic impact on human capabilities and society. Many believe that by allowing all components of our information technology infrastructure-computational capabilities, databases, sensors, and people-to be shared flexibly as true collaborative tools the Grid will have a similar transforming effect, allowing new classes of applications to emerge." --From the Preface

In 1998, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman introduced a whole new concept in computing with the first edition of this book. Today there is a broader and deeper understanding of the nature of the opportunities offered by Grid computing and the technologies needed to realize those opportunities. In Grid 2, the editors reveal the revolutionary impact of large-scale resource sharing and virtualization within science and industry, the intimate relationships between organization and resource sharing structures and the new technologies required to enable secure, reliable, and efficient resource sharing on large scale.

Foster and Kesselman have once again assembled a team of experts to present an up-to-date view of Grids that reports on real experiences and explains the available technologies and new technologies emerging from labs, companies and standards bodies. Grid 2, like its predecessor, serves as a manifesto, design blueprint, user guide and research agenda for future Grid systems.

• 30 chapters including more than a dozen completely new chapters
• Web access to 13 unchanged chapters from the first edition
• Three personal essays by influential thinkers on the significance of Grids from the perspectives of infrastructure, industry, and science
• A foundational overview of the central Grid concepts and architectural principles
• Twelve application vignettes showcase working Grids in science, engineering, industry, and commerce
• Detailed discussions of core architecture and services, data and knowledge management, and higher-level tools
• Focused presentations on production Grid deployment, computing platforms, peer-to-peer technologies, and network infrastructures
• Extensive bibliography and glossary

Part I: Perspectives 1. Grids in Context 2. The Scientific Imperative 3. The Industrial Imperative
Part II: Framework 4. Concepts and Architecture
Part III: Applications 5. Predictive Maintenance: Distributed Aircraft Engine Diagnostics 6. Distributed Telepresence: The NEESgrid Earthquake Engineering Collaboratory 7. Scientific Data Federation: The World Wide Telescope 8. Medical Data Federation: The Biomedical Informatics Research Network 9. Knowledge Integration: In silico Experiments in Bioinformatics 10. Distributed Data Analysis: Federated Computing for High Energy Physics 11. Massively Distributed Computing: Virtual Screening on a Desktop Grid 12. Enterprise Resource Management: Applications in Research and Industry 13. Interactivity with Scalability: Infrastructure for Multiplayer Games 14. Service Virtualization: Infrastructure and Applications 15. Group-Oriented Collaboration: The Access Grid Collaboration System 16. Collaborative Science: Astrophysics Requirements and Experiences
Part IV: Architecture 17. The Open Grid Services Architecture 18. Resource and Service Management 19. Building Reliable Clients and Services 20. Instrumentation and Monitoring 21. Security for Virtual Organizations: Federating Trust and Policy Domains
Part V Data and Knowledge 22. Data Access, Integration and Management 23. Enhancing Services and Applications with Knowledge and Semantics
Part VI: Tools 24. Application-Level tools 25. Languages, Compilers, and Runtime System 26. Application Tuning and Adaptation
Part VII: Infrastructure 27. Production Deployment: Experiences and Recommendations 28. Computing Elements 29. Peer-to-Peer Technologies 30. Network Infrastructure 31. Bibliography