What is Grid Computing
Grid computing is the collection of Computer
resources from multiple locations to reach a
common goal.
Grid Computing
Grid computing is a form of distributed computing whereby a "super and
virtual computer" is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely coupled
computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks.
Grid computing (Foster and Kesselman, 1999) is a growing technology that
facilitates the executions of large-scale resource intensive applications on
geographically distributed computing resources.
Facilitates flexible, secure, coordinated large scale resource sharing among
dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resource
Enable communities (“virtual organizations”) to share geographically
distributed resources as they pursue common goals
Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman
Computational Grid
“A computational grid is a hardware and software
infrastructure that provides dependable, consistent,
pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end
computational capabilities.”
”The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing
Infrastructure”, Kesselman & Foster
Example : Science Grid (US Department of
Energy)
Data Grid
• A data grid is a grid computing system that deals with data —
the controlled sharing and management of large amounts of
distributed data.
• Data Grid is the storage component of a grid environment.
Scientific and engineering applications require access to large
amounts of data, and often this data is widely distributed. A
data grid provides seamless access to the local or remote data
required to complete compute intensive calculations.
Example :
Biomedical informatics Research Network (BIRN),
the Southern California earthquake Center (SCEC).
Key Cloud Computing Grid Computing
Cloud Computing follows a client- Grid Computing follows a
Architecture server computing architecture. distributed computing
architecture.
In Cloud Computing, resources are In Grid Computing, resources are
Resource centrally managed. managed on a collaboration
pattern.
Cloud Computing is more flexible Grid Computing is less flexible.
Flexibility
than Grid Computing.
Users pay for using the cloud Grid computing needs to be set up
computing resources. They need first. Users need not pay anything
Payment
not to set up anything. They use once the set-up is done.
the platform as a service.
Cloud Computing is a highly Grid Computing is low on
accessible service. It can be accessibility as compared to cloud
Accessibility
accessed using conventional web computing. It can be accessed
protocols. using grid middleware.
When compared to grid Grid computing, on the other hand,
Scalability computing, it is extremely scalable. is not as scalable as cloud
computing.
Grid Computing vs Distributed Computing
Grid Computing Distributed Computing
It is defined as the efficient It is defined as managing
utilization and management hundreds or thousands of
of pool of heterogeneous computer systems which
systems with non-iterative have limited memory and
workloads. processing power. Traditional
Distributed Computing is
defined as the subset of grid
computing.
