The evolution toward the Virtual Data Centre and the adoption of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) have transformed grid technology from the domain of high performance computing to a core fabric of an infrastructure that virtualizes applications, optimizes service delivery, and simplifies the management of this virtual computing environment. Uniquely architected as a set of modular web services based upon open industry standards, our product Fura Enterprise Edition can seamlessly interoperate with other crucial elements of the core infrastructure, including systems management, application servers, data-caching, and distributed databases.

Fura Enterprise Edition is available in two versions. Fura Open Enterprise Edition (FOEE) is GPL licensed, and as such, the source code and the freedom to modify it are provided. Notice that because of the nature of GPL, any plug-in or connector developed to work with Fura or FOEE must be also distributed under the GPL license. On the other hand, Fura Commercial Enterprise Edition (FCEE) is released under a commercial EULA. This version is for companies that prefer not to use open source products. Also plug-ins and connectors developed with this version can be distributed without the GPL. Aside from the EULA and the derived consequences, both versions are identical.

Both versions of Fura Enterprise Edition share the same source code with Fura, but is addressed for production environments, where the focus is on stability, reliability, and support. They also come packaged with a support tracking systems that allows us to better help our customers that wish to purchase Fura with our professional support model. The Fura project is addressed to developers and, therefore, its focus is on bleeding-edge technology, not on stability.

Fura represents the culmination of 7 years of interaction with our communities. Fura is not a traditional Grid solution: we think that it is probably the best product for setting up an enterprise Grid with the best foundations for scalability, agility and resilience.

Fura is a grid middleware designed to be the engine of the new virtual data center. It is based on Web Service standards (SOAP, WSDL, WS-Security) integrating seamlessly in SOA environments. Integration points into the virtual data center include global caching, distributed and cached data bases, utility computing extensions, or system management tools. Fura's component based plug-in architecture allows grid services to be extended or replaced as needed, and new high-level services can be developed reusing existing lower components. Moreover, redundancy and self-healing mechanisms permeate all layers of the platform.

Fura's functional capabilities comprise delivery, virtualization, and management services:

• Delivery: The delivery components are those related to the optimal execution of applications. For this purpose, the Fura Agents, available in Linux, Windows, Solaris, AIX, HPUX, and MacOS X, extend the Grid to a collection of computers or resources in a lightweight native fashion. Resource grouping further permits the reservation and clustering of computing resources (Agents, batch queues, Servers, FPGAs, other Fura servers, etc).
  
  
• Virtualization: The virtualization in Fura permeates all the component layers. The virtual file system provides a fully WS-based access to data resources from any component in the Grid. The virtualization of Grid-enabled applications abstracts them from the resource layers, and additionally provides autonomic splitting and scheduling of tasks, and seamless legacy code integration. Finally, the resource layer is virtualized and treated as a pool in which groups are defined dynamically by their characteristics.
  
  
• Management: The management components of Fura support low-level services related to authentication, user policies, resource policies, temporary data storing and caching, and basic Agent management (resource description, benchmarking, and provisioning). Other services provide auditing, messaging, backwards compatibility, server clustering, and the provisioning and caching of applications. Finally, higher level services provide real time and historical data on the usage of the Grid, including user activity, application activity, and economic cost.