The Overview Of Grid And Cloud Computing

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

GRID :

It links different kind of computers to form one large infrastructure, harnessing unused resources and enables provisioning of computer resources as a utility which can be turned ON/OFF (i.e. Utility computing is paying for what you use on shared servers like you pay for a public utility (for e.g. electricity, gas, etc..)).

Grid computing is scalable. Scalability is accomplished through load balancing of application instances running separately on a variety of operating systems and connected through Web services. CPU and network bandwidth is allocated and de-allocated on demand. The system's storage capacity goes up and down depending on the number of users, instances, and the amount of data transferred at a given time.

Grid computing may or may not be in the cloud depending on what type of users are using it. If the users are systems administrators and integrators, they care how things are maintained in the cloud. They upgrade, install, and virtualize servers and applications. If the users are consumers, they do not care how things are run in the system.

Grid computing requires the use of software that can divide and farm out pieces of a program as one large system image to several thousand computers. One concern about grid is that if one piece of the software on a node fails, other pieces of the software on other nodes may fail. This is alleviated if that component has a failover component on another node, but problems can still arise if components rely on other pieces of software to accomplish one or more grid computing tasks. Large system images and associated hardware to operate and maintain them can contribute to large capital and operating expenses.

Grid computing focuses on computationally intensive operations.

Some of the Key benefits include:

Sharing resources among a large pool of users assists in reducing infrastructure costs and peak load capacity.

Provide service-level agreements (SLAs) for guaranteed uptime availability of, say, 99 %. If the service slides below the level of the guaranteed uptime service, the consumer will get service credit for receiving data late.

This supports multitenancy and multitasking, which means end customers can perform multiple tasks in single or multiple applications at any given point in time.

Cloud:

Cloud Computing has evolved by Grid Computing .it goes one step ahead with on-demand resource provisioning. This eliminates over-provisioning when used with utility pricing. It also removes the need to over-provision in order to meet the demands of millions of users.

Cloud computing, companies can scale up to massive capacities in an instant without having to invest in new infrastructure, train new personnel, or license new software. Cloud computing is of particular benefit to small and medium-sized businesses who wish to completely outsource their data-center infrastructure, or large companies who wish to get peak load capacity without incurring the higher cost of building larger data centers internally. In both instances, service consumers use what they need on the Internet and pay only for what they use.

The service consumer no longer has to be at a PC, use an application from the PC, or purchase a specific version that's configured for smartphones, PDAs, and other devices. The consumer does not own the infrastructure, software, or platform in the cloud. He has lower upfront costs, capital expenses, and operating expenses. He does not care about how servers and networks are maintained in the cloud. The consumer can access multiple servers anywhere on the globe without knowing which ones and where they are located.

Some of the Key benefits include:

This also supports multitenancy and multitasking, which means end customers can perform multiple tasks in single or multiple applications at any given point in time.

Resources like CPU and Network bandwidth can be allocated or de-allocated on-demand and also proved to be as a cost effective solution for most of the business.

Cloud service providers are increasing in the recent days and Amazon Web Services is one of the dominant players in cloud computing and offers two types of instances: standard and high-CPU.

GRID and CLOUD (IT’s Application)

In today’s dynamic business environment IT departments are under permanent pressure to meet two divergent requirements:

1. To reduce costs and

2. To support business agility with higher flexibility and responsiveness of the IT infrastructure.

Grid and Cloud Computing enable a new approach towards IT .They enable increased scalability and more efficient use of IT based on virtualization of heterogeneous and distributed

IT Resources. The further information presented here discuss about understanding of the fundamentals of Grids and Cloud and of how companies can benefit from them.

for example: Outsourcing, Working Mobility, Small enterprises, New or Concepts to be tested (Research and Development),

Outsourcing:

This has created a new way of delivering goods and services, which requires virtual teams to work on remote data /information residing on remote location.

Mobility:

Due to cross - geo expansion of the business as result of the Globalization , companies needs its employees to travel across countries to setup new business ,increase their customer base, which also requires them to stay connected with the data and information required for them to be successfully , accurate and quick in making decisions.

Small enterprises:

These are the kind of startup enterprises or the ones with the limited number of employees working, but require a specialized set of tools or mobility solutions to cater to their business needs. In such scenarios companies will have to invest a huge amount of money to setup the required infrastructure (including physical space, cooling ...etc.), in order to overcome such unnecessary investments or where there is no quick ROI (return on investment). Such companies can opt for Cloud based setup, which will reduce their investment cost along with service assurance.

New or Concepts to be tested (Research and Development)

This is one of the key activity every organization would perform at least once in their life time of business .In today’s world, change is constant yet rapid. The one who copes up with the changing business needs, customer mindset and the trends will survive. Hence to meet this challenging need of change, every organization must invest and prioritize their

R&D activities. Again investing a dedicated facility to perform R&D, testing (i.e. Physical space, servers, testing tools, applications etc.) will not be feasible for all kinds of organizations, and the answers to such scenarios will be cloud or Grid computing, wherein the organizations can benefits from having a required infrastructure in an easy, hassle free and cost effective way along with SLA’s, SLO and Service Quality Assurance.

Even thoigh we see a long list of differences and benefits oif GRID and Cloud computing models , and the way they are changing the way of computing and IT Services industries operations. We need to consider some of the common issues with them.

Issues to consider are:

Threshold policy

Let’s say, we hit the crunch for the season. Higher demand for a particular application (hosted on Cloud/Grid) would be detected and more instances would be created to fill that demand. As we moved out of the crunch, the need would be diminished and the instances of that resource would be de-allocated and put to other use.

Remedy:

Testing if the program works, develop, or improve and implement, a threshold policy in a pilot study before moving it to the production environment. Checking how the policy detects sudden increases in the demand in the instances and results in to the creation of additional instances to fill in the demand. Also check to determine how unused resources are to be de-allocated and turned over to other work.

Interoperability issues

If a company outsources or creates applications with one cloud computing vendor, the company may find it is difficult to change to another computing vendor that has proprietary APIs and different formats for importing and exporting data. This creates problems of achieving interoperability of applications between these two cloud computing vendors. You may need to reformat data or change the logic in applications. Although industry cloud-computing standards do not exist for APIs or data import and export, Many Cloud service providers have worked together to make interoperability happen.

Hidden costs

Cloud computing does not tell you what hidden costs are. For instance, companies could incur higher network charges from their service providers for storage and database applications containing terabytes of data in the cloud. This outweighs costs they could save on new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. In another instance of incurring network costs, companies who are far from the location of cloud providers could experience latency, particularly when there is heavy traffic.

And Unexpected Behavior.

Let's suppose your credit card validation application works well at your company's internal data center. It is important to test the application in the cloud with a pilot study to check for unexpected behavior. Examples of tests include how the application validates credit cards, and how, in the scenario of the December buying crunch, it allocates resources and releases unused resources, turning them over to other work. If the tests show unexpected results of credit card validation or releasing unused resources, you will need to fix the problem before running the application in the cloud.

Conclusion

This essay helps us in understanding the GRID and Cloud Computing (Conceptually) along with sharing some of its key benefits, common features, behaviors and issues. Also discusses the remedies (wherever applicable) and gives us an more practical overview of the need or the role the GRID and Cloud computing play in today’s Field of Business and Scientific research.