Companies look at Grid as the pooling and efficient utilisation of resources, all accessible through the Internet and coordinated by Virtual Organizations.
Moving beyond concrete representations for ASP processes within a single organization, the targets are open and flexible infrastructures more suitable for dynamic and networked organisations.
ASPs federated in a network (the Virtual Organization) - Grid technologies allow resource sharing across and beyond institutional boundaries, forming a dynamic market that overcomes the limitations of static configurations. This allows the configuration of the service to be changed in order to address unforeseen bottlenecks in real time while still constraining costs. It also allows new services to be created and compiled with reduced time to market
There is no marked distinction between providers and users - The VO embraces all actors because everyone can make their own resources (or a part of them) available for the other involved parties. Naturally, providers and consumers still exist but also consumers contribute to the organization with their own resources and so they obtain a cheaper applications rent fee as payment or even an income for the use of their resources. ASP market players have been identified as the following:
ASP/GSP Providers
ASP Enablers
ASP/Grid R&D
Governmental Institutions
Model 1 - ASP as a Grid User
For example, an ASP has an existing system and simply wants to add some peripheral functionality, due to lower switching costs.
- Reduction of the total cost of ownership (TCO) by outsourcing parts of the value chain that can be provided cheaper by using Grid Services through exploiting economies of scale.
- Transparent use of the Grid
- The customer is not interested in understanding the Grid itself as potential part of new business processes.
Model 2 - ASP as a Grid Enabler
Perghaps the most promising proposed business model, concerning time-to-market and potential effort/benefit ratio (harvesting the Grid).
- Orchestration of existing Grid services in combination with the legacy system
- Enhanced scalability
- New sophisticated services possible
- Existing client interface can be kept
- Cheap and fast access to Grid Computing facilities (Enabler).
- Improved time-to-market
- Creates new products and acts as service reseller
- Relies on the core competences of other vendors
Model 3 - Grid Service Provider (GSP)
The previous two models rely on this. The competitive advantage is the potentially big imitation barriers, due to higher investments.
- Additional market by selling component services, which need not be completely related to an existing business process.
- It can still act as a classical ASP by providing interfaces to its own clients.
This work was produced by the BEinGRID project.
Print this page