Foresights
Grid computing
What is it?
‘Grid' represents an approach to the sharing of computing resources, principally processing power and storage. Unlike distributed and cluster computing, which generally require shared resources to be closely located and managed, grid takes advantage of networks to integrate heterogeneous resources into a single, self-administering virtual computer.
Grid is also heavily tied to the concept of utility computing, which is currently popular with many vendors. Utility computing builds on grid concepts to foresee computing resources being ubiquitous and paid for by use just like gas and electricity. The complexity of how these resources are managed and generated remains shielded from the end user.
Because grid can improve the capability and throughput when processing large data sets by harnessing disparate resources, it has been applied in applications as diverse as protein-folding simulation, high-end graphics rendering, weather forecasting, earthquake monitoring, oil and gas exploration and financial simulation and modeling.
Implementing a grid involves the use of underlying grid middleware to handle the dynamic allocation of the resources on the distributed network.
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