Companies today need a competitive edge to stay alive. Grid computing
provides a way to harness all available computing resources to meet
business objectives and compete to win. It allows companies to do more
at a much lower cost by providing resources to meet overall demand.
Grid Computing Features and Benefits
- Time to market
- Increase quality/reliability and add features
- Harness all available resources
- Flexible, scalable compute environment
- Ability to use lower cost commodity hardware
- Do things you couldn't do before
Grid computing can be defined as an expandable, scalable set of
resources applied to solve a single or a set of problems - usually a
scientific or technical problem that requires a large number of
computer processing cycles. This can be seen in small and large
companies alike as they design integrated circuits, do drug discovery,
molecular modeling, financial simulations, or any number of other
compute intensive calculations.
Grid is an architecture that enables dynamic allocation of resources to varying workloads in accordance with business needs. Users do not care where the compute cycles or data reside - it is delivered to them quickly, efficiently, and seamlessly.
The basic components of a Grid include:
- Compute Grid
- Data Grid
- Access Grid
- Commercial Grid
Compute Grid is a set of hardware and software that forms a compute
infrastructure where compute intensive batch applications are run. The
batch jobs could be short jobs that take a few seconds or minutes to
complete, to very long jobs that can take hours or days. These jobs
run on the compute grid that is designed and tuned to provide the
fastest possible turnaround given the application set. The compute
components could be confined to the network of computers within a
corporation or it can be a public collaboration.
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.
Access Grid is the set of hardware and software used to submit
compute jobs. The hardware could be any windows or unix based computer
with network access to the compute and data grids. One prominent grid
portal software product is EnginFrame from NICE. Grid portal software
is not required to submit compute jobs or access the grid, but it does
simplify the process.
Commercial Grids are focused on database applications. Oracle,
SAP and other database companies have introduced solutions that allow
users to take advantage of Grid computing environments for commercial
applications. This growing trend is the next evolution in Grid
Computing.
Grid computing is the
information technology infrastructure of the future, and it is here
today!
