Grid Computing

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Grid computing breaks down complex computing problems into small steps that can be solved in parallel by thousands or even millions of machines at once. A Grid can be seen as a framework for flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources. Grid computing is the attempt to solve massive computational problems by making use of the unused resources (CPU cycles and/or disk storage) of large numbers of disparate, often desktop, computers. It is found mainly in individual projects carried out to meet specific needs. Current examples of Grid Computing are based on voluntary participants, which donate the use of their own computers for free:

Grid computing (often used synonymously for Distributed computing) began with SETI@home. In this project, Internet users can download a small screensaver program that would crunch data from radio observatories, looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. It has not found any extraterrestrials yet, but the project proved that large-scale distributed "Grid" computing is possible. One of the first real successful grid computing projects was the distributed.net project. Its major accomplishment was successfully cracking RSA Laboratories' RC5 64-bit encryption algorithm in 1,757 days utilizing more than 300,000 machines.

Folding@Home is another remarkable project initiated and started by a group of Stanford University researchers. The goal is to unlock the mystery of how proteins fold, which is a very complex process. Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many cancers and cancer-related syndromes. Since October 1, 2000, over 1,000,000 machines throughout the world have participated in this important project.

Ideally all these projects should interact as part of a larger, standard Grid environment, but no international consensus exists as to which of the many ideas, proposed standards, and specifications are likely to dominate in the future. Will the CERN, the birthplace of the WWW, again be helpful here ? The term 'Grid' was chosen for two reasons. First it suggests the idea of a 'power grid': users can plug into the computing infrastructure to get computing power like plugging into an electrical power grid to get electrical power. Second it is sometimes used synonymously with an organized group of computers in a network, in other words a networked, high performance-computing infrastructure.


News

According to this BBC article, connected PCs can do thousands of years of work.

Sun Microsystems unveils rentable grid computing. It offers pay-per-use grid computing $1 per microprocessor used, $1 per month per GB of storage

Articles

Ian Foster et al. The Anatomy of the Grid

Mark Baker et al., Emerging Grid Standards

Grids and Grid Technologies for Wide-Area Distributed Computing

arXiv articles about Grid Computing

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.DC/0503025 A Taxonomy of Workflow Management Systems for Grid Computing

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0312603 Complex Grid Computing

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.DC/0407001 Global Grids and Software Toolkits: A Study of Four Grid Middleware Technologies

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.DC/0405023 A Grid Service Broker for Scheduling Distributed Data-Oriented Applications on Global Grids

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.DC/0404027 The Gridbus Toolkit for Service Oriented Grid and Utility Computing: An Overview and Status Report

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