Resumen
It is informed that the Internet, along with its myriad resources and users, constitutes a vast artificial virtual environment that benefits all of human society. But both the general public and the research community may be unaware of its developmental trend toward disorder due to the exponential growth of the numbers and types of its resources and users. Web users are regularly dissatisfied with the Web's information services, and information technology (IT) professionals worldwide look to establish new interconnection environments through, say, the Semantic Web, the Grid, and peer-to-peer and intelligent technologies. An Eco-Grid is an open worldwide interconnection environment reflecting the characteristics of natural ecological environments. Its versatile resources and social roles coexist harmoniously yet evolve, provide appropriate on-demand services to one another, are transformed from one form to another, and communicate in terms of information, knowledge, and service flows through social and economic value chains. The Eco-Grid's development methodology incorporates relevant principles, rules, models, and methods involving ecology, biology, physics, economics, systems science, management science, and social science. It provides an experimental environment for investigating the economic and ecological management and social behavior of its millions of participants.