Every session to introduce Cloud Infrastructure Services course ends with a question on how Grid Computing is different from Cloud Computing ?
Most of academia in India speak of Grid and hence i have seen academicians confuse it with Cloud Computing. This post today will share some insight into comparing Cloud Computing with Utility Computing and Grid Computing
Historically, Cloud Computing has evolved through Grid and then Utility Computing.
In Grid Computing Environment, the workload is distributed or transferred to nodes with needed computing resources. Usually a chain of nodes, such as servers, are networked to form the grid. These nodes are typically clustered and are kept ready to handle the distributed workload. Grid computing enables parallel computing, although its utility is best for large workloads.
The emergence of the virtualization technology at storage, servers, and network allows organizations to offer on-demand, metered service similar to public utility, hence the term Utility Computing. The main benefit of utility computing is capital and operational cost savings. Most data centers have under utilized servers, storage networks, and storage, due to over provisioning to handle peak workload, sudden spike, and projected growth. Utility Computing introduces ‘pay only for what you use’ models, allowing organizations to hire computing resources when required.
Cloud Computing has borrowed many concepts of grid computing; however, the computing resources can be dynamically allocated or upgraded, even at a more granular level based on workload demand. Additionally, cloud computing can be developed with non-grid environments, such as a three-tier web architecture running traditional or Web 2.0 applications.The backbone of cloud computing is utility computing, however, it offers a wider picture. It can be applied internal to an organization to build its own cloud infrastructure, in addition to utility services. Cloud provides the opportunity of unlimited scalability, significant cost savings,internet based access, workload balancing, dynamic and fine granular provisioning, and self service requesting. It is a next generation of computing, after mainframe, personal computer, client-server computing, and the web.
