Q.

7
Grid computing is a group of networked computers which work together
as a virtual supercomputer to perform large tasks, such as analysing
huge sets of data or weather modeling. Through the cloud, you can
assemble and use vast computer grids for specific time periods and
purposes, paying, if necessary, only for what you use to save both the
time and expense of purchasing and deploying the necessary resources
yourself. Also by splitting tasks over multiple machines, processing time
is significantly reduced to increase efficiency and minimise wasted
resources.
Unlike with parallel computing, grid computing projects typically have no
time dependency associated with them. They use computers which are
part of the grid only when idle and operators can perform tasks
unrelated to the grid at any time. Security must be considered when
using computer grids as controls on member nodes are usually very
loose. Redundancy should also be built in as many computers may
disconnect or fail during processing.

 characteristics
 Large scale: a grid must be able to deal with a number of resources
ranging from just a few to millions. [...]
 Geographical distribution: grid's resources may be located at
distant places.
 Heterogeneity: a grid hosts both software and hardware resources
that can be very varied ranging from data, files, software components
or programs to sensors, scientific instruments, display devices,
personal digital organizers, computers, super-computers and
networks.
 Resource sharing: resources in a grid belong to many different
organizations that allow other organizations (i.e. users) to access
them. [...]
 Multiple administrations: each organization may establish different
security and administrative policies under which their owned
resources can be accessed and used. [...]
 Resource coordination: resources in a grid must be coordinated in
order to provide aggregated computing capabilities.
 Transparent access: a grid should be seen as a single virtual
computer.
 Dependable access: a grid must assure the delivery of services
under established Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. [...]
 Consistent access: a grid must be built with standard services,
protocols and inter-faces thus hiding the heterogeneity of the
resources while allowing its scalability. [...]
 Pervasive access: the grid must grant access to available resources
by adapting to a dynamic environment in which resource failure is
commonplace.
 Grid Fabric level consists of distributed resources such as
computers, networks, storage devices and scientific instruments.
 Core Grid middleware offers services such as remote process
management, co-allocation of resources, storage access,
information registration and discovery, security, and aspects of
Quality of Service (QoS) such as resource reservation and trading.
 User-level Grid middleware utilizes the interfaces provided by the
low-level middleware to provide higher level abstractions and
services. These include application development environments,
programming tools and resource brokers for managing resources
and scheduling application tasks for execution on global
resources.
 Grid applications and portals are typically developed using Grid-
enabled languages and utilities such as HPC++ or MPI. An
example application, such as parameter simulation or a grand-
challenge problem, would require computational power, access to
remote data sets, and may need to interact with scientific
instruments. Grid portals offer Web-enabled application services,
where users can submit and collect results for their jobs on remote
resources through the Web.

Some advantages are quite obvious:

1. No need to buy large six figure SMP servers for applications

that can be split up and farmed out to smaller commodity type
servers. Results can then be concatenated and analyzed upon
job(s) completion.
2. Much more efficient use of idle resources. Jobs can be farmed
out to idle servers or even idle desktops. Many of these
resources sit idle especially during off business hours. Policies
 can be in place that allow jobs to only go to servers that are
lightly loaded or have the appropriate amount of memory/cpu
characteristics for the particular application.
3. Grid environments are much more modular and don’t have
single points of failure. If one of the servers/desktops within the
grid fail there are plenty of other resources able to pick the load.
Jobs can automatically restart if a failure occurs.
4. Policies can be managed by the grid software. The software is
really the brains behind the grid. A client will reside on each
server which send information back to the master telling it what
type of availability or resources it has to complete incoming
jobs.
5. This model scales very well. Need more compute resources?
Just plug them in by installing grid client on additional desktops
or servers. They can be removed just as easily on the fly. This
modular environment really scales well.
6. Upgrading can be done on the fly without scheduling
downtime. Since there are so many resources some can be taken
offline while leaving enough for work to continue. This way
upgrades can be cascaded as to not effect ongoing projects.
7. Jobs can be executed in parallel speeding performance. Grid
environments are extremely well suited to run jobs that can be
split into smaller chunks and run concurrently on many nodes.
Using things like MPI will allow message passing to occur
among compute resources.

Some disadvatages:

1. For memory hungry applications that can’t take advantage of

MPI you may be forced to run on a large SMP.
2. You may need to have a fast interconnect between compute
resources (gigabit ethernet at a minimum). Infiband for MPI
intense applications
3. Some applications may need to be tweaked to take full
advantage of the new model.
4. Licensing across many servers may make it prohibitive for
some apps. Vendors are starting to be more flexible with
environment like this.
5. Grid environments include many smaller servers across various
administrative domains. Good tools for managing change and
keeping configurations in sync with each other can be
challenging in large environments. Tools exist to manage such
challenges include systemimager, cfengine, Opsware,
Bladelogic, pdsh, cssh, among others.
6. Political challenges associated with sharing resources
(especially across different admin domains). Many groups are
reluctant with sharing resources even if it benefits everyone
involved. The benefits for all groups need to be clearly
articulated and policies developed that keeps everyone happy.
(easier said than done…)