Question

What is the difference between the following computing forms? Mention only one difference for each of the following:

a) Grid computing and cluster computing

b) Grid computing and cloud computing

c) Utility computing and cloud computing

Answer 1

The difference between the following computing forms:

a) Grid computing and cluster computing:
Grid computing, with its geographically distributed architecture, is heterogeneous, using the virtualized computers and servers that comprise the grid, work on different Operating Systems (OSs) and hardware through co-ordinated sharing; whereas cluster computing is homogenous with computers and servers that comprise the cluster have the same OS and hardware working loosely or tightly together.

b) Grid computing and cloud computing:
Grid computing, with its geographically distributed architecture, is heterogeneous, using the virtualized computers and servers that comprise the grid work on different Operating Systems (OSs) and hardware through co-ordinated sharing, where all the resources are accessed individually, separately, or together from various locations to resolve a given single task; whereas cloud computing does not access resources directly, but makes use of and accesses them remotely through a service over the Internet or public Internet for any application or software to work, with the resources been accessed running in clusters from a single location.

c) Utility computing and cloud computing:
Utility computing is a business model offering computing resources such as servers, computation, storage, and other services as a metered service, where users are charged based on their usages, with all the resources located at one place chosen by the users; whereas cloud computing is a computing and public utility model which is cheaper than utility computing, offering resources for the users to use them on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, and even other pricing models such as reserved, one-time or initial payment, spot resources utilization and payment for the same, with all the resources located in different locations (data centers or availability zones or sets) controlled by the cloud vendor and yet the users are given options to choose one place (geographical region with sets, availability zones, sets, and data centers) for their resources to run from.