Grid Computing is one of the most exciting and potentially powerful developments in computing for some time. The ultimate promise of 'The Grid' is to have many computers working together seamlessly, either collaborating locally in small groups, or interconnected globally by the Internet, to deliver a new electronic service-infrastructure which could have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences.

It is our belief that this family of technologies will continue to develop at an increasing pace, and will ultimately drive a fundamental change in the way software engineering and systems development are undertaken. It is entirely possible that the impact of these innovations will eventually be as significant and unpredictable as that of the Internet to-date.

The following pages include brief introductions to:

Parallel Processing on 'The Grid'

One exciting application of Grid Computing in our sphere of operations is the use of Parallel Processing, using many distributed computers, working together, to solve complex analytical problems very quickly. For example, we make extensive use of these techniques in our high-performance risk analysis tools.

By designing our computational algorithms, and implementation software correctly, we can make best use of the huge processing power that Grid Computing techniques make available, to perform very large and complex calculations quickly and efficiently. This approach can be used as the basis for a range of High Performance Computing techniques.

For an example of grid-based parallel processing techniques in action - using our XML Space technology - see our 'Enigma Cracker' example: Breaking the Enigma Code.

Systems, Applications & Software Solutions

We have developed a number of software tools and applications which both support and make use of these techniques. These are both at the infrastructure-level and at the application level. See our Software Page for more details.