grid - the next generation internet

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GRID: AN INTRODUCTIONINTRO: as the GRID has become the latest technology trend and issue of talk and research over the entire software and computing business fraternity, we take a plunge into the GRID and see what is it that’s making it the talk of today.




CONTENTS::- Internet as of today

:- Cloud computing v/s grid computing

:- GRID a new revolution

:- Basics of grid and example

:- Grid security issues and future of internet




INTERNET: One of the most revolutionary developments of 70’s and 80’s was the evolution of Internet. The internet came as a mind blowing concept and soon became easily available to most of the home users. In recent times the internet has become a necessity just as personal computer became a few years ago. The main reason for the success of internet was that the content or the data scattered over the globe was made available to each of the connected user. The information in the form of data or business transactions or multimedia applications or softwares became just a click away.

Many believe the world wide web and the internet are the same thing, but the internet is actually a massive network of networks, which connects millions of computers together globally, and the web is an information-sharing model built on top of the internet, which allows information to be accessed over the medium of the internet.

Soon it was realised that just as CONTENT or data can be easily distributed over the world through the internet, the computational power of the computers over the internet can also be utilised to solve a problem that requires high processing like advanced scientific applications etc. The concept of GRID was born.




THE GRID:




Cloud computing v/s Grid Computing: Cloud computing is the use of a 3rd party service(Web Services) to perform computing needs. Here Cloud depicts Internet . With cloud computing, companies can scale up to massive capacities in an instant without having to invest in new infrastructure.

Cloud computing eliminates the costs and complexity of buying, configuring, and managing the hardware and software needed to build and deploy applications, these applications are delivered as a service over the Internet (the cloud). For example all the google applications!!!

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Grid computing is a form of distributed computing whereby resources of many computers in a network is used at the same time, to solve a single problem. What distinguishes grid computing from conventional cluster computing systems is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed.

The essence of grid computing lies in the efficient and optimal utilization of a wide range of heterogeneous, loosely coupled resources in an organization tied to sophisticated workload management capabilities or information virtualization.

GRID: A new revolution: Grids enable the sharing, selection, and aggregation of a wide variety of geographically distributed computational resources ... and presents them as a single, unified resource for solving large-scale compute and data intensive computing applications. There are a number of grids that have been and are being used worldwide for many applications.

The most famous of those applications was the deployment of GRID for the computation of the data obtained for the LARGE HADRON COLLIDER. The LARGE HADRON COLLIDER is the biggest scientific experiment till date and was done to find out the truths about our early universe. The large amount of data from the experiments had to be handled properly and with speed and so the LHC Computing Grid was launched on October 3, 2008.


Large Hadron Collider

Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of "the grid" project explained that the grid needs so much processing power which is the greatest issue risen on this project. The only answer is a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centers in other countries. He further explained that that network, in effect a parallel Internet, is now built, using fiber optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centers in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe, and around the world. From each center, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions that use existing high-speed academic networks. Which means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid.

http://living.oneindia.in/insync/pulse/2008/high-speed-internet-the-grid-080408.html



Uptill now, in this discussion, there has been nothing of much importance for the abstract application users like us. So some of the exciting promising features and useful facts about the GRID are bunched together into some points.

1) The grid is actually a high-speed computing network project started 7 years ago, as it’s highly needed by the Cern for transmitting huge amount of data generated by the analysis that involves the particle accelerator – Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

2) The grid is completely different from the existing Internet. The GRID is built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, and there is no single outdated component that would cause slow data transmission. The existing Internet network has evolved till the stage having many cables and routing equipments linked together, and most of these cables and equipments are originally designed for telephony networks and therefore they all lack of the capacity for high speed data transmissions.

3) Thus the GRID has been built for high speed data transfer. The speed of the GRID is almost 10,000 times that of the present internet speed. The GRID used for the Large Hadron Collider transferred data at the rate of almost 300 GB per second!!!!

4) With that much high speed, the desktop computing will become obsolete. No work would be done on the desktop, no data will e stored in the PC’s. The data will be stored online and could be accessed in no time. All the applications will be done online and


there would remain no need for heavy hard disks and fast processors. In short, MICROSOFT desktop applications are going to be obsolete and GOOGLE online applications are going to rock. So, MICROSOFT should better catch up.

5) With the GRID powering the Internet, many online activities will become possible such as holographic video conferencing.

6) The online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate. These days seem to be not too far from now, as some Telcos already start introducing some pioneering technologies based on the GRID.

7) Grid has the kind of power required to download movies in seconds, and the ability to make high-definition video phone calls for the same price as a local call.

8) It will help to narrow the search for cures for diseases. With the Grid, the scientists could run hundreds of thousands of simulations to create a shortlist of the drugs that are most likely to offer the potential for a cure. Researchers can then get to work testing the drugs singled out as promising.

9) The Grid has also already been used to save lives in the immediate aftermath of earthquakes. Using the seismic data, scientists can use the Grid for simulations that pinpoint which areas are most affected, allowing rescue teams to direct their efforts where they are most needed.

10) However, it is unlikely to be directly available to most internet users until telecoms providers build the fibre-optic network required to use it.

grid - the next generation internet

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