Grid computing

Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach common goal. What distinguishes grid computing from conventional high performance computing systems such as cluster computing is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Although a grid can be dedicated to a specialized application, it is more common that a single grid will be used for a variety of different purposes. Grids are often constructed with the aid of general-purpose grid software libraries known as middleware.
Grid size can vary by a considerable amount. Grids are a form of distributed computing whereby a “super virtual computer” is composed of many networked loosely coupled computers acting together to perform very large tasks. Furthermore, “Distributed” or “grid” computing in general is a special type of parallel computing that relies on complete computers (with onboard CPUs, storage, power supplies, network interfaces, etc.) connected to a network (private, public or the Internet) by a conventional network interface, such as Ethernet. This is in contrast to the traditional notion of a supercomputer, which has many processors connected by a local high-speed computer bus.

Overview

Grid computing combines computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach common goal.Grid computing (or the use of a computational grid) simultaneously applies the resources of many computers in a network to tackle a single problem, usually to solve a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data.When many are brought together in this collaborative effort, they are known as Virtual Organizations (VOs).These VOs may be formed to solve a single task and may then disappear just as quickly.

One of the main strategies of grid computing is to use middleware to divide and apportion pieces of a program among several computers, sometimes up to many thousands. Grid computing involves computation in a distributed fashion, which may also involve the aggregation of large-scale cluster computing-based systems. The grid is also sometimes referred to as the replacement for the Internet, offering speeds potentially 10,000 times faster than traditional broadband.This was pushed for in a large part by the research center CERN and its need for super fast Internet to send information across the globe in order to analyse and store its massive amounts of research data.

The size of a grid may vary from small—confined to a network of computer workstations within a corporation, for example—to large, public collaborations across many companies and networks. "The notion of a confined grid may also be known as an intra-nodes cooperation whilst the notion of a larger, wider grid may thus refer to an inter-nodes cooperation".

Grids are a form of distributed computing whereby a “super virtual computer” is composed of many networked loosely coupled computers acting together to perform very large tasks. This technology has been applied to computationally intensive scientific, mathematical, and academic problems through volunteer computing, and it is used in commercial enterprises for such diverse applications as drug discovery, economic forecasting, seismic analysis, and back office data processing in support for e-commerce and Web services.