Special section on networks for grid applications

Grid computing has been defined as ‘‘coordinated resource sharing andproblemsolving in dynamic,multi-institutional virtual organisations’’ (Ian Foster: http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/~foster/); see also [1] for a recent overview of the current status and perceived future directions of the Grid. In practice, the above definition implies that a computation intensive application is distributed across a number of computers for the sake of gathering more computing power (or of locating the processing near remote data repositories to limit data movement. . . ). This step from local clusters to massively distributed applications that use the Internet as its underlying means of communication entails a requirement for efficient network usage, but the Internet is a general-purpose network that was not built to provide maximum efficiency to the Grid. Grid developers and practitioners are increasingly realising the importance of efficient network support. Entire classes of applications would greatly benefit from a network-aware Grid middleware, able to effectively manage the network resource in terms of scheduling, access and use. Conversely, the peculiar requirements of Grid applications provide stimulating drivers for new challenging research towards the development of Grid-aware networks. Cooperation between Grid middleware and network infrastructure driven by a common control plane is a key factor to effectively empower the global Grid platform for the execution of