The Grid and Grid Network Services

This chapter presents a brief overview of Grid concepts, architecture, and technology, especially as they relate to Grid networks. Because many excellent explications of Grids have been published previously, including seminal descriptions and definitions [1–3], only a few basic concepts are discussed here. This chapter also introduces the theme of extending Grid architectural principles to incorporate a wider consideration of communication services and network technologies. This chapter provides a context for subsequent discussions of architecture and methods that allow network resources to be implemented as components that are completely integrated with other resources within Grid environments, rather than as separate, external resources. This integration requires network services to be characterized by a set of attributes that characterize other Grid resources. These attributes are introduced in this chapter, and they are further described in Chapter 3.