Grid computing

Grid computing offersmodelsolving massive computational problems using large numberscomputers arranged as clusters embedded indistributed telecommunications infrastructure.

Grid computing hasdesign goalsolving problems too bigany single supercomputer, whilst retainingflexibilitywork on multiple smaller problems. Thus grid computing providesmulti-user environment.

This impliesusesecure authorization techniquesallow remote userscontrol computing resources.

Grid computing involves sharing heterogenous resources (based on different platformss, hardware/software [[computer architecture | architectures]], computer languages), locateddifferent places belongingdifferent administrative domains overnetwork using open standards. In short,involves virtualizing computing resources. Functionally, one can classify grids as:

• Computational Grids (including CPU scavenging grids), or
• Data Grids.

The Globus Toolkit has emerged asde facto standardgrid middleware.

Globus has protocolshandle

1. Resource management: Grid Resource Management Protocol (GRAM)
2. Information Services: MonitoringDiscovery Service (MDS)
3. Data Movementmanagement: Global AccessSecondary Storage (GASS)GridFTP

Most ofgrids spanning researchacademic communitiesNorth AmericaEurope utiliseGlobus Toolkit as their core middleware.

XML-based web services offerwayaccessing diverse services/applications indistributed environment. As2003worldGrid computingWeb Services have startedconvergeoffer Grid asweb service (Grid Service). The Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) has defined this environment, which will offer several functionalities adhering tosemantics ofGrid Service.

Grid offerswaysolve Grand Challenge problems like protein folding, drug discovery, financial modelling, earthquake simulation, climate/weather modelling etc. Grids offerwayusinginformation technology resources optimallyan organisation. They also offermeansoffer information technology as utility bureaucommercial clients,those clients paying onlywhatuse, aselectricity or water.

Tablecontents

1 See also 2 References 3 External links

See also

• Object Management Group
• CORBA
• PVM
• Ganglia
• Distributed computing
• Render farm
• Supercomputer
• Cluster

References

• Ian Foster, Carl Kesselman: The Grid: Blueprint forNew Computing Infrastructure, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, ISBN 1558604758, Website
• Fran Berman, Anthony J. G. Hey, Geoffrey Fox: Grid Computing: Making The Global InfrastructureReality, Wiley, ISBN 0470853190, Online version

External links

• The Globus™ project
• The Condor project
• IBM Grid Computing website
• EU DataGrid project
• http://www.gridcomputing.com/
• O'Reilly article about grid computing software
• How you can fight against diseases using your computer.
• BioSimGrid: Grid databasebiomolecular simulations
• Globus Toolkit
• Global Grid Forum
• GridForge
• ProActive isJava libraryparallel, distributed,concurrent computingmobilitysecurity