NextGRID
Final Report

Introduction
This document presents the vision of the NextGRID project and shows how that vision is being realised. It introduces the principal outputs of the project, namely the NextGRID Generalised Specifications and associated Cookbook, which enable commercially viable Grids, conforming to NextGRID architectural principles, to be implemented. NextGRID was a project to develop an architecture for next-generation Grids to enable their widespread use by research and industry thus creating a dynamic market place for new services and products. To realise this vision, the project had the main objective of developing a Grid architecture to support mainstream use by meeting the needs of business users by addressing economically viable business models and security, legal and privacy issues. The project involved 22 partners, had a duration of 43 months and involved some 1,680 months of effort. This document addresses an audience interested in exploiting the opportunities such new infrastructure would create. It sets out the capabilities and opportunities to be expected from Next Generation Grids; their realisation through the Generalised Specifications and the associated Cookbook; and the project’s strategy for making a significant contribution to the development of Next Generation Grids. More detailed information addressing a technical audience is presented in the detailed NextGRID Whitepaper1 and the work referenced therein. In practice, the commercial adoption of Grid technology, in applications that cross organisational boundaries, has not yet happened. This is largely because the balance of risk and reward in a commercial environment is different from that underpinning existing academic Grids. Implicit business models make it difficult for each participant to assess this balance and manage risks. There are several specific factors that are holding back the deployment of multiorganisation
Grids supporting multiple applications. These relate to security, service level agreements, software licensing models, pricing, competitive procurement of services, the diverse nature of business services, difficulties in estimating costs in advance of deployment and the perceived and actual difficulty of deploying Grids. A key task of NextGRID has been to understand these barriers to the wider adoption of inter-enterprise Grids beyond their current academic niche and to create an architecture which overcomes those barriers where possible. The NextGRID vision is of Grids which are economically viable; in which new and existing business models are possible; in which the development, deployment and maintenance of applications are easy; and in which the provisions for security and privacy give confidence to businesses, consumers and the public. The requirements, placed on such an infrastructure to support viable business models, have been derived from real-world applications and have directed the technical work of the project. The consortium which undertook NextGRID represents the different stakeholders from representative value chains. This is essential to ensure the development of Grid infrastructures driven by viable business models. The consortium comprised: •Users with expertise in specific domains, where Grids have the potential to improve existing business processes and to stimulate new ways of doing business; •Hardware and software providers to address support, interoperability and licensing issues;

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