Oracle and Singapore's infocomm regulator have launched a manpower development program to create a ready pool of workers trained to support grid computing applications.
Dubbed g-Map, or the Enterprise-g Manpower program, it will equip some 300 Singapore infocomm professionals with grid computing know-how.
This latest collaboration between the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and Oracle is also part of the S$25-million (US$15.2 million) Enterprise-g @ Singapore initiative inked by both parties last July.
"Developing enterprise grid computing competencies is the most important because we need to start transferring enterprise grid computing skills and technology to customers and partners in the enterprise grid ecosystem," said Stanley Chew, managing director, Oracle Singapore.
According to IDA, g-Map has two main objectives: to develop Singapore's enterprise grid manpower capabilities and to support the global industry's need for a certification program.
Sun Microsystems and Red Hat will also partner with Oracle to define the skills and knowledge required by IT workers to build and manage enterprise grid computing environments.
The manpower training program targets a spectrum of IT workers--from students and administrators to enterprise grid architects.
At the basic level, students from Singapore's Nanyang Polytechnic will learn more about grid computing in school. More details will be announced in September this year, IDA said.
IT workers can also hone their skills in database administration through the Oracle 10g certification, as well as in Linux and Solaris systems administration certified by Red Hat and Sun Microsystems.
At the top tier, g-Map hopes to train 60 grid computing architects over three years. These IT professionals will not only operate grid systems, but also design and manage grid applications. The curriculum will be contributed by Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat and Singapore's Institute of System Science.
To provide the infrastructure and expertise in grid computing, Oracle has started the Enterprise-g Center, which will serve as the nerve center for all Enterprise-g @ Singapore activities. "The industry now has a digital laboratory to brainstorm and conduct their trials in a secure environment managed by our software experts," Chew said.
The Enterprise-g @ Singapore initiative encourages businesses to adopt grid computing, a technology which allows multiple computers to share processing power, storage and applications.
It is also the first joint effort between Oracle and a government agency in Asia-Pacific to promote grid computing. The game plan is to develop grid computing applications, create partner and market development, as well as address manpower needs.
"Grid computing brings a paradigm shift in basic IT practices--from the ownership of computational assets to buying compute services," said Chan Yeng Kit, IDA's chief executive officer, who is upbeat about the potential of grid computing.
According to an IDC report last year, the global grid market will be worth about US$12 billion by 2007, he added.
"By collaborating with MNCs at the forefront of technologies, we hope to co-create a pool of knowledge and expertise that will spur local grid innovation, adoption, capability and market development."
IDA also gave an update for the first time on the Singapore Land Authority's (SLA) Land Data Hub, a pioneer project started last year under the Enterprise-g @ Singapore initiative.
Through the grid-enabled Land Data Hub, the SLA allows urban planners to retrieve information on power lines, and even the trees that line Singapore's roads, from multiple government agencies.
So far, it has yielded the benefits of grid computing infrastructure, such as the ease of management, high availability of services and scalability, said Lewis Wu, SLA's IT director, in a statement.
"We are now in the next stage of the trial, where four more government agencies are involved in testing the capabilities of enterprise grid technologies," said Wu.
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