The European Organisation for Nuclear Research is relying on a grid project to analyse data generated by its Large Hadron Collider, which is probing the Big Bang theory.

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research is relying on a grid project to analyse data generated by its Large Hadron Collider, which is probing the Big Bang theory.

It is the computing equivalent of the old adage "many hands make light work".

Researchers with gigabytes of data to process worked out years ago that there was an alternative to prohibitively expensive number crunching on supercomputers: they could share the computational load around the world.

This approach has seen home computers across the globe helping out in the search for extraterrestrial life.

The SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) harnesses idle PC time to analyse radio telescope data in a search for intelligent broadcast patterns that would indicate someone is out there.

Hundreds of thousands of internet-connected computer owners have been happy to donate some unused processing time to what is seen as a worthy project through an unobtrusive screensaver-based program.

SETI is one example of grid computing in action: making use of spare processing cycles on a connected cluster of computers to create a powerful "virtual supercomputer".

While definitions of grid and cluster computing vary, the general concept of harnessing the power of a connected group of processing units is one that has increasing appeal to researchers and businesses as well.

Paul Bacon, an Auckland-based account manager for Oracle, says the majority of clients now view a cluster of low-cost servers as the best platform for running Oracle's databases and business applications.

"Customers are very interested in the ability to reduce the cost of their IT infrastructure," Bacon says.

"The whole grid story is about lowering a customer's total cost of ownership by deploying on industry standard servers. Most enterprise software has traditionally been rather expensive to deploy and a large part of that is the need to purchase large and expensive hardware platforms to accommodate it."

Bacon says a key benefit of running a grid of cheaper servers rather than a larger single server is the ability to boost resources as they are needed.

"In the traditional model if you bought a server and the capacity required by that application was underestimated, then you performed a fairly expensive 'forklift upgrade': bring the forklift in, roll that server out, roll a bigger one in.

"That is an expensive and embarrassing exercise for the IT department. One of the nice parts about the grid model is that you can incrementally add resources as you need to."