What Is a Grid?

Grid computing as we understand it today did not exist is any formal sense five years ago. Since then, it has evolved rapidly and is now an important enabling technology for autonomic computing, among other things. Grid has evolved from being considered a small niche-type academic application technology to a centerpiece of IBM's on demand strategy. All the components of grid computing are in place; processors, storage, networks, and other resources that exist today can be configured to make a grid.

Grid computing has been defined as just an extension of distributed computing; however this is not the case. Rather it can be said that it is an evolution of distributed computing. It has more potential and takes us beyond distributed ...

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