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As grid computing continues to gain popularity in the research community, it also attracts more attention from the enterprise and consumer levels. Applications in these domains generate large amounts of jobs, with individual jobs having only modest resource requirements. In this article, a novel architecture to realize a highly scalable and flexible platform for consumer-oriented grids is proposed. The architecture is based on an optical burst switched network, complemented with an advanced control and signaling plane. The architecture, functionality, and interfaces of all the relevant entities are presented and issues, current initiatives, and future directions for the control and management of these grid networks are discussed.