GARUDA is a collaboration of science researchers and experimenters on a nation wide grid of computational nodes, mass storage and scientific instruments that aims to provide the technological advances required to enable data and compute intensive science for the 21st century. One of GARUDA’s most important challenges is to strike the right balance between research and the daunting task of deploying that innovation into some of the most complex scientific and engineering endeavors being undertaken today.

The Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India has funded the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to deploy the nation-wide computational grid GARUDA. In Proof of Concept (PoC) phase which ended on March 2008, 17 cities across the country were connected with an aim to bring “Grid” networked computing to research labs and industry. From April 2008 the Foundation phase is in progress with an aim to include more users’ applications, providing Service Oriented architecture, improving network stability and upgrading grid resources. GARUDA will assist to accelerate India’s drive to turn its substantial research investment into tangible economic benefits.