Grid Networks: The New Computing Infrastructure
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Authors
Han, John
Issue Date
2002
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Grid networks are an evolutionary descendant of both parallel and cluster
computing architectures. They have much in common with the electric grid in that
processing power is designed to be distributed ubiquitously within computer networks,
without information as to where the source is. Also like the electric grid, grid networks
are designed to connected heterogeneous systems in a reliable and dynamically changing
way.
Grid networks have required the development of new software tools for resource
allocation and management, resource information publishing, security, and
communication just to name the primary functions. These services have all been
incorporated into a functional open-architecture, open-source project called Globus. Both
Internet infrastructure development and grid network infrastructure development began
with government research initiatives which eventually led and are leading to government-induced
privatization of both networks respectively. Firstly, standard technical
procedures and protocols were set network wide. Secondly, legislation stimulated private
sector growth to induce commercialization of the infrastructure. However the two
projects differ in that grid infrastructure development has been able to use the existing
Internet hardware infrastructure base, commercial sector, and established nongovernmental
collaborative research organizations as springboards. We are currently in
the midst of a privatization phase of grid networks. An international organization called
the Global Grid Forum, consisting of world grid network researchers, is likely to soon
standardize Globus or some variation of it as the globally accepted wide-area distributed
supercomputing platform. An American government initiative to lease the processing
time of a Globus-operated supercomputing network called the National Technology Grid,
is likely to be followed by legislation to fully privatize the network. However, due to
existing large commercial roles in the project, this legislation may only be a formality.
This new commercial information processing infrastructure will be the source of
inexpensive supercomputing power provided and used largely by scientific and medical
research communities, accelerating the advancement of all research that requires the use
of high-performance computers. Differing security and performance requirements may
cause the eventual partitioning of the grid into networks organized according to
processing requirements rather than national or political interests (e.g. industry,
academic, commercial, financial, entertainment).
Description
v, 50 p.
Citation
Publisher
Kalamazoo College
License
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder.