I heard different computing models are now emerging technology like grid,utility,cloud,parallel, distributed,soft,pervasive,computing 2008,cluster computing etc.. Can you give me the clear picturization of these models & how these models are inter-linked?

I believe that when most people talk about “Cloud” they are referring to the phenomenon of increasing centralisation and commoditisation of ICT services – “everything over the wire”.

We need more terms; what I describe here is the mass-market for utility compute resources – the “power grid” of computing, if you will. What you are talking about could be called “Cloud Services” perhaps – services run no a compute utility and themselves delivered as a utility in a standardised manner. The problem I have with that is that while compute resources are interoperable, services are generally not (my compute and storage is directly comparable/interchangeable with Amazon’s, but Kashflow.co.uk is not so easily interchangeable with Xero.com).

As for Eucalyptus, we are thinking of using that for our own EC2-like service. Personally I think Amazon have got it a bit wrong though, and we are going to roll out something a little different most likely as well.

DuraCloud looks interesting – probably ideal for folks that are not too worried about security / locality.

The definitions you have set for the various concepts Grid/Utility/Cloud while appear reasonable do not quite explain the difference in intent of each.

I agree in the main with your definitions, however as there is no standard defined it is dangerous to create definitions with out the understanding of how you are abstracting the problem.

I am currently part of an open source pilot:
http://duraspace.org/duracloud.html

The way that we abstract the various layers and define the evolution is thus:

Grid Computing:
Provisioning of hardware in a virtualised environment to provide the building blocks required to host various applications.

Utility Computing:
The ability to dynamically supply or allocate (and bill) elements of a Grid environment on demand.

Cloud Computing:
The application of utility computing as a service (SLA’s and QoS), independent of vendor. Interoperability is a key consideration and a major factor.

The Duracloud project will allow interested organisations to host a cloud environment that will host various distributed applications providing compute and storage services.

The open source environment that can be used currently is:
http://www.eucalyptus.com/

also see:
http://www.eucalyptus.com/enterprise/info/cloud-myths-dispelled/

Best regards.

In the future, I expect ever-more services to be delivered over the wire with less and less compute resource at the client-end (like OnLive).

Perhaps the best example of ‘true’ cloud computing in the gaming world is Sony’s PS3 where the ‘host’ for some games is the distributed collection of games consoles themselves.

Thanks for the article.

I am a trained engineer an have not got a clue what you lot are talking about, however, we are now selling wireless meter reading equipment so companies can have more accurate readings on utility bills.

Are there any sites we can attach our software to, so making them open to the client direct?

Martin