 Clouds and grids compared

 Cloudy grids?
 Future directions

Clouds and grids compared

Let’s take a look at the main differences between grids and clouds.

Grid computing Cloud computing

What? Grids enable access to shared Clouds enable access to leased
computing power and storage capacity computing power and storage capacity
from your desktop from your desktop
Who Research institutes and universities Large individual companies e.g.
provides the federate their services around the world Amazon and Microsoft and at a smaller
service? through projects such as EGI-InSPIRE scale, institutes and organisations
and the European Grid Infrastructure. deploying open source software such
as Open Slate, Eucalyptus and Open
Nebula.
Who uses Research collaborations, called "Virtual Small to medium commercial
the service? Organisations", which bring businesses or researchers with generic
togetherresearchers around the world IT needs
working in the same field.
Who pays Governments - providers and users are The cloud provider pays for the
for the usually publicly funded research computing resources; the user pays to
service? organisations, for example through use them
National Grid Initiatives.
Where are In computing centres distributed across The cloud providers private data
the different sites, countries and continents. centres which are often centralised in a
computing few locations with excellent network
resources? connections and cheap electrical
power.
Why use - You don`t need to buy or maintain - You don`t need to buy or
them? your own large computer centre maintain your own personal computer
- You can complete more work centre
more quickly and tackle more difficult - You can quickly access extra
problems. resources during peak work periods
- You can share data with your
distributed team in a secure way.
What are Grids were designed to handle large Clouds best support long term services
they useful sets of limited duration jobs that and longer running jobs (E.g.
for? produce or use large quantities of data facebook.com)
(e.g. the LHC and life sciences)
How do they Grids are an open source technology. Clouds are a proprietary technology.
work? Resource users and providers alike can Only the resource provider knows
understand and contribute to the exactly how their cloud manages data,
management of their grid job queues, security requirements and
so on.
Benefits? - Collaboration: grid offers a federated - Flexibility: users can quickly
platform for distributed and collective outsource peaks of activity without
work. long term commitment
- Ownership : resource providers - Reliability: provider has financial
maintain ownership of the resources incentive to guarantee service
they contribute to the grid availability (Amazon, for example, can
- Transparency: the technologies used provide user rebates if availability
are open source, encouraging trust and drops below 99.9%)
transparency. - Ease of use: relatively quick and
- Resilience: grids are located at easy for non-expert users to get started
multiple sites, reducing the risk in case but setting up sophisticated virtual
of a failure at one site that removes machines to support complex
significant resources from the applications is more difficult.
infrastructure.
Drawbacks? - Reliability: grids rely on distributed - Generality: clouds do not offer many
services maintained by distributed staff, of the specific high-level services
often resulting in inconsistency in currently provided by grid technology.
reliability across individual sites, - Security: users with sensitive data
 although the service itself is always may be reluctant to entrust it to
available. external providers or to providers
- Complexity: grids are complicated to outside their borders.
build and use, and currently users - Opacity: the technologies used to
require some level of expertise. guarantee reliability and safety of
- Commercial: grids are generally only cloud operations are not made public.
available for not-for-profit work, and - Rigidity: the cloud is generally
for proof of concept in the commercial located at a single site, which increases
sphere risk of complete cloud failure.
- Provider lock-in: there’s a risk of
being locked in to services provided by
a very small group of suppliers.
When? The concept of grids was proposed in In the late 1990`s Oracle and EMC
1995. The Open science grid (OSG) offered early private cloud solutions .
started in 1995 The EDG (European However the term cloud computing
Data Grid) project began in 2001. didn't gain prominence until 2007.

 Clouds and grids compared

 Cloudy grids?
 Future directions

Clouds and grids compared

Let’s take a look at the main differences between grids and clouds.

Grid computing Cloud computing

What? Grids enable access to shared Clouds enable access to leased
computing power and storage capacity computing power and storage capacity
from your desktop from your desktop
Who Research institutes and universities Large individual companies e.g.
provides the federate their services around the world Amazon and Microsoft and at a smaller
service? through projects such as EGI-InSPIRE scale, institutes and organisations
and the European Grid Infrastructure. deploying open source software such
as Open Slate, Eucalyptus and Open
Nebula.
Who uses Research collaborations, called "Virtual Small to medium commercial
the service? Organisations", which bring businesses or researchers with generic
togetherresearchers around the world IT needs
working in the same field.
Who pays Governments - providers and users are The cloud provider pays for the
for the usually publicly funded research computing resources; the user pays to
service? organisations, for example through use them
National Grid Initiatives.
Where are In computing centres distributed across The cloud providers private data
the different sites, countries and continents. centres which are often centralised in a
computing few locations with excellent network
resources? connections and cheap electrical
power.
Why use - You don`t need to buy or maintain - You don`t need to buy or
them? your own large computer centre maintain your own personal computer
- You can complete more work centre
more quickly and tackle more difficult - You can quickly access extra
problems. resources during peak work periods
- You can share data with your
distributed team in a secure way.
What are Grids were designed to handle large Clouds best support long term services
they useful sets of limited duration jobs that and longer running jobs (E.g.
for? produce or use large quantities of data facebook.com)
(e.g. the LHC and life sciences)
How do they Grids are an open source technology. Clouds are a proprietary technology.
work? Resource users and providers alike can Only the resource provider knows
understand and contribute to the exactly how their cloud manages data,
management of their grid job queues, security requirements and
so on.
Benefits? - Collaboration: grid offers a federated - Flexibility: users can quickly
platform for distributed and collective outsource peaks of activity without
work. long term commitment
- Ownership : resource providers - Reliability: provider has financial
maintain ownership of the resources incentive to guarantee service
they contribute to the grid availability (Amazon, for example, can
- Transparency: the technologies used provide user rebates if availability
are open source, encouraging trust and drops below 99.9%)
transparency. - Ease of use: relatively quick and
- Resilience: grids are located at easy for non-expert users to get started
multiple sites, reducing the risk in case but setting up sophisticated virtual
of a failure at one site that removes machines to support complex
significant resources from the applications is more difficult.
infrastructure.
Drawbacks? - Reliability: grids rely on distributed - Generality: clouds do not offer many
services maintained by distributed staff, of the specific high-level services
often resulting in inconsistency in currently provided by grid technology.
reliability across individual sites, - Security: users with sensitive data
although the service itself is always may be reluctant to entrust it to
available. external providers or to providers
- Complexity: grids are complicated to outside their borders.
build and use, and currently users - Opacity: the technologies used to
require some level of expertise. guarantee reliability and safety of
- Commercial: grids are generally only cloud operations are not made public.
available for not-for-profit work, and - Rigidity: the cloud is generally
for proof of concept in the commercial located at a single site, which increases
sphere risk of complete cloud failure.
- Provider lock-in: there’s a risk of
being locked in to services provided by
a very small group of suppliers.
When? The concept of grids was proposed in In the late 1990`s Oracle and EMC
1995. The Open science grid (OSG) offered early private cloud solutions .
started in 1995 The EDG (European However the term cloud computing
Data Grid) project began in 2001. didn't gain prominence until 2007.