What is Access Grid?
See News for details of changes to support from 1st August 2011
Access Grid (AG) in simple terms is an advanced videoconferencing application that uses audio and video tools allowing people in different locations worldwide to meet in a virtual venue (virtual meeting room). In these virtual venues participants can see and speak to each other in realtime, use online chat and share applications simultaneously. As an application AG is ideal for any size of meeting due to its scalability. At its most basic it can run on a laptop with webcam using the laptop's display and webcam microphone for a one-to-one meeting or it can be used in a conference room with a server, several high specification cameras and large display boards to create a group-to-group meeting with participants from across the globe.
Access Grid Nodes
Access Grid Nodes allow people to communicate through visual images and sound exchanged between different computers. There is no theoretical limit to how many nodes can be linked, and the number of people at each site is limited only by room size and hardware present.
Access Grid is Born
Ever changing advancements in computing have enabled the development of enhanced computing power by linking together large numbers of computers in a way that is similar to an electricity power grid. ‘Grid’ and high performance computing is looked at in three forms – the Data Grid, the Computational Grid, and the Access Grid. Data and Computational Grids facilitate large scale computer interactions enabling vast quantities of information to be shared. The Access Grid is the human element, it enables remote humans to interact and communicate with one another in real time.
Devices called Access Grid Nodes allow the human elements to communicate through visual images and sound exchanged between different computers. The User essentially sets up a hardware and software environment to create a node which facilitates their interactions through the grid. There is no theoretical limit to how many nodes can be linked, and the number of people at each site is limited only by room size and hardware present.
The Access Grid (AG) was developed by the FuturesLab at Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne National Laboratory is one of the United States Department of Energy's oldest and largest science and engineering research national laboratories. The first large-scale AG event was the "Alliance Chautauqua 99", a series of two-day conferences on computational science organised by the NCSA. The AG was later demonstrated at Supercomputing'99 in Portland to an international audience. The first US West coast's AG was installed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego in January 2000 by B. Pailthorpe, J Moreland and N Bordes. The SDSC AG was used on 23-24 March 2000, to host a West coast / Washington DC President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) meeting for about 30 west coast CEOs, who did not have to fly to Washington DC.
The UK's first Access Grid was built at the University of Manchester in 2001, and there has been a steady growth in the number nodes since then. At June 2011 there were 443 Access Grid nodes registered to use the service.
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