Sun has been talking recently more about hosted computing solutions, including hosted applications for science and engineering the ordinarily run locally on supercomputers. All of this ties in with the grid computing and virtualization strategies. Scott McNealy talks about the concept here (pdf).
Sun announced this week that it has
added additional features to its Network.com pay-per-use offering, giving developers and open source communities the ability to just “click and run” applications online and a unique new way to create personalized application playlists. The first of its kind, the new Network.com Application Catalog enables developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop and publish their applications online, allowing communities of scientists and academics in life sciences, education, engineering, and other fields to accelerate innovation and complete research projects quickly and less expensively.
The offering includes some significant science and engineering apps:
ConcurrentEDA, CDO2, Simbiosys, Wolfram Research, Mathspec, Q-Chem, OpenEye Scientfic Software, Hypercube and WU BLAST, are just a few of the ISVs that support Network.com.
And includes some traditional HPC users like Lawrence Livermore and the EPA who are either kicking the tires or satisfying some of their surge demand.
As I’ve said before, I think this is an important model going forward that has already been slowly gaining momentum in other segments of the business market for IT resources.