Usability Issues of Grid System Software

This paper addresses the problem why grid technology hasnot spread as fast as the Web technology of the 1990's. In the past 10years, considerable efforts have been put into grid computing. Muchprogress has been made and more importantly, fundamental challenges andessential issues of this field are emerging. This paper focuses on thearea of grid system software research, and argues that usability ofgrid system software must be enhanced. It identifies four usabilityissues, drawing from international grid research experiences. It alsopresents advances by the Vega Grid team in addressing these challenges.