Despite a massive build-up of advanced information technology infrastructure, China has been slow to adopt grid computing to boost enterprise system resources.
A new survey found limited awareness of grid computing by mainland firms, which wanted more 'proof of concept' projects to determine the technology's maturity and its ability to provide a swift return on investment.
'These findings are important to us because IT companies like Oracle have the responsibility of showing the market what grid computing has to offer,' said Tony Banham, senior director for global customer programmes at Oracle Asia-Pacific. He was speaking last week at a presentation of the first global Oracle Grid Index report.
Grid computing connects pools of computers, storage and networks, enabling enterprises to efficiently allocate all available data and application resources based on changing business needs. This model borrows from modern electrical grids in the way it combines geographically distributed resources to generate more power on demand.
Within enterprises, grid computing technology can employ clusters of cheap connected servers to offer processing power far in excess of the world's largest supercomputers.
The Oracle Grid Index, from a survey completed last month of 1,356 organisations in 19 countries, measured the overall grid-readiness of businesses in the Asia Pacific (4.37), North America (4.5) and Europe (4.39) based on return on investment, commitment, benefit, knowledge, consolidation and standardisation.
China topped the world in standardisation (8.7) and consolidation (8). Mr Banham said this showed China did not have 'the excess baggage', or legacy IT infrastructure, that developed western markets must integrate with new systems.
