Fundamentals of Grid Computing

The purpose of this IBM Redpaper is to provide discussion material about grid computing, concepts, use, and architecture. Grid computing represents unlimited opportunities in terms of business and technical aspects. The audience for this paper are all hungry minds looking for a collection of facts and data about this new and exciting realm. The following major topics will be introduced to the readers: What grid computing can do Grid concepts and components Grid construction The present and the future What the grid cannot do Grid computing, most simply stated, is distributed computing taken to the next evolutionary level. The goal is to create the illusion of a simple yet large and powerful self managing virtual computer out of a large collection of connected heterogeneous systems sharing various combinations of resources. The standardization of communications between heterogeneous systems created the Internet explosion. The emerging standardization for sharing resources, along with the availability of higher bandwidth, are driving a possibly equally large evolutionary step in grid computing. When you deploy a grid, it will be to meet a set of customer requirements. To better match grid computing capabilities to those requirements, it is useful to keep in mind the reasons for using grid computing. This section describes the most important capabilities of grid computing. The easiest use of grid computing is to run an existing application on a different machine. The machine on which the application is normally run might be unusually busy due to an unusual peak in activity. The job in question could be run on an idle machine elsewhere on the grid.