Comparative analysis between Grid and Cloud computing

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN CLOUD COMPUTING AND GRID COMPUTING.

Er. Bijoy Boban (Reg No: 11200402, Roll No: A09)

Lovely Institute of Technology and Sciences (School: K2, Session: 209)

Lovely Professional University

Phagwara, India-144411

April 2013

Abstract - Cloud computing is the current most trendy and social technology that has been launched on the network world which can also be called as a reincarnation or evolution of Grid computing, so the Clouds are considered as a new generation of Grid computing. These Clouds consist of data centres which are owned by individual institute, organisations or companies. The homogeneity within each data centre in the infrastructure is the main feature for the cloud computing compared to grid computing . Cloud Computing has become another most used word on internet after Web 2.0. There are many definitions for Cloud computing and there seems to be no consensus on what a Cloud is. Cloud Computing is not a completely new concept, it has intricate connection to the relatively new but thirteen year established Grid Computing paradigm and other relevant technologies such as utility computing, cluster computing, and distributed systems when we go through the structure and working of a Cloud.

Keywords- Cloud computing, Grid computing, SAAS (Software As A Service), IAAS (Infrastructure As A Service), PAAS (Platform As A Service).

I. INTRODUCTION

In this paper we give a comparative analysis between the latest in market Cloud computing and the famous through Google architecture, the back born of Google networks, the Grid computing. Cloud computing emerged as one of the trend setting and speed oriented technology in networks. Cloud computing is made with the logical and physical combination of many other sectors of computing technology such as HPC, virtualization, utility computing and grid computing, so as we said in the abstract cloud was an evolution from grid computing. In order to make clear the importance of cloud computing, we are giving a detailed description of the characteristics of this area which make cloud computing being cloud computing and distinguish it from other research areas like grid computing. The main characteristics of cloud computing that make it distinct from others are service oriented, loose coupling, strong fault tolerant, business model and easily usable by any internet user. Now let us consider grid computing at the other end, Grid computing in the simplest case refers to cooperation of multiple processors on multiple machines and its objective is to boost the computational power in the fields which require high capacity of the CPU [3]. In grid computing multiple servers which use common operating systems and software have interactions with each other. Grid computing is hardware and software infrastructure which offer a cheap, distributable, coordinated and reliable access to powerful computational capabilities, i.e. why grid computing stayed in the market for over 14 years and still under use.

From the overview on the above explanations we can say that Cloud Computing represents a novel and promising approach for implementing scalable ICT systems for individuals, communities and business use, relying on the latest achievements of diverse research areas such as Grid computing, Service oriented computing, business processes and virtualization. From the technological point of view Grid computing is considered as the most related predecessor technology of Cloud computing. Although Cloud and Grid computing differ in many aspects, as for example in the general idea of the provision of computational resource which is in Clouds commercial based and in Grids community based there are many similarities. In this term paper we investigate the similarities and differences between Clouds and Grids by evaluating two successful projects and also evaluating various features, fault tolerance, security, service and other aspects.

II. CLOUD, GRID AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM

You might have immediately notice that our definition of Cloud Computing overlaps with many existing technologies such as Grid Computing, Utility Computing, Services Computing, and distributed computing in general. We argue that Cloud Computing not only overlaps with Grid Computing, it is indeed evolved out of Grid Computing and relies on Grid Computing as its backbone and infrastructure support. The evolution has been a result of a shift in focus from an infrastructure that delivers storage and compute resources (such is the case in Grids) to one that is economy based aiming to deliver more abstract resources and services (such is the case in Clouds). As for Utility Computing, it is not a new paradigm of computing infrastructure; rather, it is a business model in which computing resources, such as computation and storage, are packaged as metered services similar to a physical public utility, such as electricity and public switched telephone network. Utility computing is typically implemented using other computing infrastructure (e.g. Grids) with additional accounting and monitoring services. A Cloud infrastructure can be utilized internally by a company or exposed to the public as utility computing. See Figure 1 for an overview of the relationship between Clouds and other domains that it overlaps with. Web 2.0 covers almost the whole spectrum of service-oriented applications, where Cloud Computing lies at the large-scale side. Supercomputing and Cluster Computing have been more focused on traditional non-service applications. Grid Computing overlaps with all these fields where it is generally considered of lesser scale than supercomputers and Clouds [2].

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 1: Grids and Clouds Overview [2]

Grid Computing aims to enable resource sharing and coordinated problem solving in dynamic, multi-institutional virtual organizations [12][13]. There are also a few key features to this definition: First of all, Grids provide a distributed computing paradigm or infrastructure that spans across multiple virtual organizations (VO) where each VO can consist of either physically distributed institutions or logically related projects/groups. The goal of such a paradigm is to enable federated resource sharing in dynamic, distributed environments. The approach taken by the de facto standard implementation – The Globus Toolkit [14][15], is to build a uniform computing environment from diverse resources by defining standard network protocols and providing middleware to mediate access to a wide range of heterogeneous resources. Globus addresses various issues such as security, resource discovery, resource provisioning and management, job scheduling, monitoring, and data management. Half a decade ago, Ian Foster gave a three point checklist [16] to help define what is, and what not a Grid is:

- Coordinates resources that are not subject to centralized control,
- Uses standard, open, general-purpose protocols and interfaces.
- Delivers non-trivial qualities of service. Although point 3 holds true for Cloud Computing, neither point 1 nor point 2 is clear that it is the case for today’s Clouds.

The vision for Clouds and Grids are similar, details and technologies used may differ, but the two communities are struggling with many of the same issues. This paper strives to compare and contrast Cloud Computing with Grid Computing from various angles and give insights into the essential characteristics of both, with the hope to paint a less cloudy picture of what Clouds are, what kind of applications can Clouds expect to support, and what challenges Clouds are likely to face in the coming years as they gain momentum and adoption. We hope this will help both communities gain deeper understanding of the goals, assumptions, status, and directions, and provide a more detailed view of both technologies to the general audience.

III. CLOUD DEFINITION

As Cloud is new and as Cloud is not under any proprietary ownership or organisation, people who devote or contribute to the development of cloud gives their own definition based up on service at various levels or according to architectural basis they have developed. So there is no standard or agreed definition for Cloud. According to Gartner [5], Cloud computing is a style of computing where massively scalable IT related capabilities are provided as a service across

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