Grid Computing Is For Scientists And Cloud Computing Is For Business
Copyright (c) 2011 Sandra Tiffany
Grid computing refers to the combination of computer resources from many networked computers to meet a common goal or to solve a single problem at the same time. Grid computing was developed in the early 1990s in order to make computer power as easy to access as an electric power grid.
Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman had performed some work with an electric power grid, called "The Grid: Blueprint for a new computing infrastructure." The ideas behind grid computing came from Ian Foster, Carl Kesselman and Steve Tuecke.
Sun Microsystems offers Grid Engine software. Engineers working for Sony and Synopsys have used Grid Engine to combine up to 80 computers together at a time. National Technology Grid had a grid for computer use and an access grid that people can also use.
Many professional groups, corporations, universities and other organizations are producing or have already produced framework and software that manages projects involving grid computing. Earth observation, high-energy physics and biology applications are using a project for grid that is sponsored by the European Community.
Some of the benefits of using grid computing include:
1. Money savings by using a large amount of computer resources together 2. Solving problems that need large amounts of computing power 3. Tasks can be performed more efficiently and quickly
Businesses that use intensive scientific, mathematical, academic problems and commercial enterprises that require intense computing power use grid computing. Applications such as economic forecasting, drug discovery, seismic analysis and back office data processing for e-commerce and web services all benefit from using grid computing.
Grid computing works by using many computer resources that are shared with every other computer on the network; this includes sharing of processors, memory and data storage. Because every computer resources are used, it turns all of these computers on the network into a very powerful supercomputer.
The load is shared across many computers which allows tasks to be performed more efficiently and quickly. Computer scientists, engineers and programmers are still working on improving grid computing by establishing, creating and implementing standards and protocols. Vendors sometimes help with testing the software and by making recommendations and suggestions.
Grid computing proves to be beneficial for many organizations and has a very likely chance of becoming more used and well-known in the years to come. Cloud computing is superseding Grid computing in most businesses.
About the Author
Sandra Tiffany shares the history of grid computing and what professions that still use it. Learn here about the benefits of grid computing, the software companies involved in it and why cloud business computing is replacing grid computing. Read the articles about grid, cloud and cloud business computing and don't forget to shop the "deal of the day". http://www.cloudbizcomputing.com
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