Time-Sharing refers to sharing a computing resource among many users by multitasking. Time-Sharing was very popular in the early mainframe and minicomputer days when most could not afford to outright purchase computer systems. Users and organizations would buy time slices on large mainframe systems. Fast forward to 2006, SUN Microsystems has revived the concept of Time-Sharing with the Sun Grid. What a great idea, now users and organizations have and economical way to satisfy a temporary need for compute power. Organizations can manage infrastructure that accommodates the majority of the requirements and leverage the Sun Grid for the overflow.

-RJB