Not to confuse cloud computing with grid computing relationships

Recently, there have been people or asked about the difference between cloud computing and grid computing, or that cloud computing is an extension of grid computing, and even scholars write comparative papers. In fact, cloud computing has nothing to do with grid computing, but this article will clarify the difference between cloud computing and grid computing, as well as the concepts of cloud computing and distributed computing, utility computing, and so on.

Narrow cloud computing refers to the delivery and usage patterns of IT infrastructure, which means acquiring the required resources (hardware, platform, software) on an as-needed and extensible basis over the network. A network that provides resources is called a "cloud." The resources in the cloud can be extended indefinitely by the user, and can be obtained at any time, on demand, at any time, and paid for by use. This feature is often called the use of IT infrastructure like hydroelectric power.

Generalized cloud computing refers to the delivery and use of services, which means that the required services are obtained through the network in an accessible and extensible manner. This service can be it and software, Internet-related, and can make any other service.

Cloud computing is not a business model, not a pay model, it is not an IT technology, it is not a kind of it products, not a pay model, not SOA, not virtualization or virtualization software, not simply to the purchase into leasing, not distributed computing, not high-performance computing, not grid computing, Not software as a service (SaaS).

Grid computing refers to two types of commonly used subtypes in distributed computing. One is the online computing or storage provided as a service under the support of distributed computing resources. The other is a virtual supercomputer consisting of a loosely connected computer network that can be used to perform large-scale tasks. This technique is often used to solve computational-sensitive research, mathematics, and academic problems through volunteer computing, and is also used by commercial companies for background data processing, economic forecasts, and seismic analysis needed for E-commerce and network services.

Grid computing emphasizes resource sharing, and anyone can do it as a requester using resources from other nodes, and anyone needs to contribute some resources to other nodes. Grid computing emphasizes the transfer of work to remote, available computing resources. Cloud computing emphasizes exclusivity, and anyone can access its own proprietary resources, and these resources are provided by a small group of users who do not have to contribute their own resources. In cloud computing, computing resources are transformed to accommodate workloads, which support grid type applications and non-grid environments, such as three-tier network architectures that run traditional or Web2.0 applications. Grid computing focuses on parallel computing concentration requirements and is difficult to expand automatically. Cloud computing focuses on transactional applications, with a large number of individual requests that enable automatic or semi-automatic scaling.

Most of the grids are built to fulfill a particular task or to support challenging applications. This is also the reason for the emergence of various grid projects such as bio-grid, geo-grid, national education grid, etc. Cloud computing is generally designed for general applications. Cloud computing begins with a wide range of enterprise computing, Web applications, and more universality.

The main idea of grid computing is the loosely coupled resource of aggregation distribution. And cloud computing is relatively concentrated IT resources, in the form of intenet to provide the access and use of the underlying resources.

In the treatment of heterogeneity, the two ideas are different. Grid computing uses middleware to shield heterogeneous systems, trying to make users face the same environment, leaving difficulties in the middleware, so that the middleware completes the task. While cloud computing, different services treat heterogeneous types in different ways, all traditional methods can be applied here. Some provide the infrastructure, similar to the traditional server, the user chooses the operating system and the application environment, some masks the operating system, the infrastructure and the system software difference, for example PAAs service.

In short, cloud computing has no intrinsic connection to the grid. Grid computing has been evolving, but it has nothing to do with the advent of cloud computing. Grid computing as a special application-oriented solution will continue to exist in some areas, and cloud computing as an IT change, it will profoundly affect the entire IT industry and human society.