Sun's announcement marks the information technology industry's latest step toward "utility computing, " a grid system in which companies pipe in data processing and storage from faraway server farms, says Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, a book on utility computing published earlier this week.

FORBES: Sun Plans To Close Its Data Centers

Main.net's system skips the high-voltage lines, injecting data into the grid further downstream, on medium-voltage (4, 000 to 25, 000 volts) lines.

FORBES: Technology

Densest GPU system architecture: NVIDIA GRID provides the highest number of concurrent, interactive data streams by using multi-GPU servers and sophisticated NVIDIA VGX GPU-sharing technology.

ENGADGET: NVIDIA details the Grid, a card built for powering cloud computing

The training provided the participants with the overview of the grid network, the architecture of the gLite middleware, an introduction to job submission, data management and grid workflows, the concept of virtual organizations and the virtual organisation management system, as well as practical exercises on the use of gLite on the GILDA testbed.

UNESCO: Education

Using advanced computational techniques capable of analyzing streaming data from sensors across the grid in near real-time enable more dynamic monitoring of the entire power system across large geographic areas, and offers the potential to reach even higher levels of performance and cost-effectiveness through improved situational awareness.

ENGADGET: IBM announces Smarter Energy Research Institute, aims to improve energy grids (video)