The iVDGL is seen as a unique resource for scientific applications requiring access to Petabytes of data (1 Petabyte = 1 million Gigabytes) and beyond.
"iVDGL provides a testbed without peer for further investigation and development of Grid technologies," Foster said.
Meanwhile, iVDGL will provide a global computing resource for several leading international experiments in physics and astronomy, including the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the proposed National Virtual Observatory (NVO).