GRID COMPUTING ON DESKTOP PC'S

Grid computing on desktop PC's

Grid computing on desktop PC's

Introduction

The main objective of this paper is to focus on Grid Computing. Grid computing is similar to clustering except clustering is done on Local Area Networks while Grid Computing is done on a large scale. The main topic of this paper is to analyze the commercial feasibility of Grid Computing within the next five years. A particular type of Grid Computing is discussed in this paper.

Grid computing on desktop PC's

Increased network bandwidth, more powerful computers, and the acceptance of the Internet have driven the on-going demand for new and better ways to compute. Commercial enterprises, academic institutions, and research organizations alike continue to take advantage of these advancements, and constantly seek new technologies and practices that enable them to reinvent the way they conduct business. However, many challenges remain increasing pressure on development and research costs, faster time-to-market, greater throughput, and improved quality and innovation are always foremost in the minds of administrators - while computational needs are outpacing the ability of organizations to deploy sufficient resources to meet growing workload demands.

Most IT departments are being forced to do more with less. Budgets are tight, resources are thin, and skilled human resources can be scarce or expensive. To top it off, most corporate managers know that they have a super-abundance of idle computing power. It's well known in industry circles that most desktop machines only use 5% to 10% of their capacity, and most servers barely peak out at 20%. No surprise then that many of the big money people in corporate America balk at the thought of purchasing more equipment to get the job done.What these companies need is not more horsepower, but more efficient use of existing horsepower. They need a way to tie all of these idle machines together into a pool of potential labor, manage those resources, and provide secure and reliable access to the number-crunching muscle. Imagine if a corporation or organization could use all of its idle desktop PCs at night to run memory- and processor-intensive tasks? They would get more work done faster, possibly get to market faster, and at the same time cut down their IT expenses.Grid computing is emerging as a viable technology that businesses can use to wring more profits and productivity out of IT resources, and it's going to be up to the developers and administrators to understand Grid computing and put it to work.Over the last decade, computing has become increasingly concerned with collaboration, data sharing, and other new modes of interaction that involve distributed resources. While no one would argue that this paradigmatic shift was mainly due to the phenomenal growth of the Internet, the emergence of grid computing technologies actually play an important role. Grid computing technologies enable sharing and coordinated use of distributed computing resources . Compared to traditional computing platforms, grids feature superior cost-effectiveness and flexibility.From a developer's perspective, Grids are composed of virtual organizations using a common suite of ...