Mike D’s Blog

...and there's nothing to say you can't do your computing and/or storage on the client nodes either, right? (e.g. volunteer computing like SETI@home or Skype's network of supernodes). The point is the consumer doesn't [need to] care, even if it is true that the vast majority of cloud computing today (think Google) is done on grid-like architectures.

Yes, Google is a good example of a grid like architecture that creates a PaaS cloud. However, I think the largest cloud out there today is still Amazon EC2 which is an example more like VDC-OS that creates a IaaS cloud. Of course it's hosted and proprietary so it's not exactly like what VDC-OS will be.

So I think cloud is the new term to describe several different architectures out there. Cloud to me simply means I've gotten to that "I Don't Care" state. Whatever architecture I use to get there depends on my needs.

Mike and I have different views on this. One day I will probably be proved wrong.

VMware Virtualisation with ESX is about abstracting the compute load into a virtual machine. Turn that into a cluster (aka VDC-OS) then you have what is close to a grid cluster. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster) "Grid computing is optimized for workloads which consist of many independent jobs or packets of work, which do not have to share data between the jobs during the computation process. Grids serve to manage the allocation of jobs to computers which will perform the work independently of the rest of the grid cluster. Resources such as storage may be shared by all the nodes, but intermediate results of one job do not affect other jobs in progress on other nodes of the grid." Sounds close the VDC-OS to me, your workload is a VM and it runs it for you in the cluster.

When you take that VDC-OS and add remote and elastic, services you have morphed it into a cloud platform, and that may be internal or external. http://rodos.haywood.org/2009/02/remote-elastic...

Do I sound like a broken record? Do I make sense? We can't just go around re-defining everything just so it fits neater.

Great discussion!

Rodos

You're not crazy at all, Rodos. That's a good breakdown of things. I think the confusion has been where grid has traditionally been used (large HPC installations that need a lot of compute cycles). What's interesting is I know of several "grid" installations where they use VMware virtual machines to run each of the independent workloads. Typically Grid installs are using multiple things to do one larger piece of work. Typically VMware installs have been used to lots of little, unrelated pieces of work. Of course I guess you could argue that most multi-tier apps are lots of little things put together to do one piece of work.

For now I say both VDC-OS and Grid are both cloud architectures and they are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, Google is a good example of a grid like architecture that creates a PaaS cloud. However, I think the largest cloud out there today is still Amazon EC2 which is an example more like VDC-OS that creates a IaaS cloud. Of course it's hosted and proprietary so it's not exactly like what VDC-OS will be.

So I think cloud is the new term to describe several different architectures out there. Cloud to me simply means I've gotten to that "I Don't Care" state. Whatever architecture I use to get there depends on my needs.

We had freaky parallel thinking (or customer conversations) on the the same day Mike!

I told you this conversation comes up all the time. :)

Mike,
If you ask 10 (knowledgeable) people about this topic you would probably get 11 answers.. all different obviously.... :-)

I always tend to see Grids and Clouds as two similar ideas but implemented at different "API levels". Grid has (or I should say had?) the ambitious to create a common API across different OSes so that an application could just be "ported" onto the Grid (and what happens next you don't care as you have an SLA contract with the Grid etc etc).

The "little" problem was the "porting" part. No one wants (or wanted?) to reinvent the wheel and re-write the applications etc etc etc (usual problem). So the magic at that point was to lower the level of integration and provide a level of abstraction which is below the OS (you might guess what this is ... :-) ).

This way you don't have to rewrite anything and BTW encapsulating your WHOLE environment into a single file (by design) is a HUGE bonus.

In the perfect Cloud word there would be a standard though across disks formats and other little details so that you could take your Amazon VM, check it out and check it in again into another cloud that runs a different "virtualization" platform.

Massimo.

Great explanation. And yes, in a perfect world there would be standards. That's what's being worked on now in places like CCIF (Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum) and OGF (Open Grid Forum).

You said this "...The point of cloud is you don’t have to care if you have a grid" this is if you are a common user but we are not common users we try to design what is best for our enterprises and cloud fits in as a solution just like grid.
I was expecting to have some facts on why an enterprise would abide for a cloud and not a grid. The differences, the maintenance and the cost.

As for me from a technological point of view cloud and grid are the same because we can run them on heterogenous platform and provide the maximum capacities of our infrastructures and services.
From a servicing point of view that is where there is a difference because grid is put in place in other to respond with the max capacity available to request coming from users meanwhile cloud while expected to do the same is open to mere users without them just waiting for the job to be done.

Goddy EPIE
http://oraclecameroon.blogspot.com/

That was a fabulous post. Thanks for the information shared here. Good Comparison and thoughts of the Cloud Computing and Grid computing. I gathered more information about the Grid and Cloud Computing.


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