International Lattice Data Grid: Turn on, plug in,and download

Abstract

In the beginning there was the internet, then came the world wide web, and now there is the grid. In the future perhaps there will be the cloud. In the age of persistent, pervasive, and pandemic networks I review how the lattice QCD community embraced the open source paradigm for both code and data whilst adopting the emerging grid technologies, and why having your data persistently accessible via standardized protocols and services might be a good idea.