#9 Dream

so, on one hand, something like amazons EC2 can be regarded as a kind of 'on-demand' super-computer. I can then collect this 'cloud' resource with a number of other 'normal' (super)computer resources and build a Grid. i.e. Grid contains Cloud.

but, the EC2 infrastructure itself can probably be regarded as somekind of Grid - as I'm sure it is pretty distributed and does a lot of Grid-like stuff. Cloud contains Grid. Staying with the Grid as I think I understand it today, is a Super-cloud a façade enveloping a Grid of distributed (super)computers ? My super-cloud wrapping all my distributed resources including EC2 ones. Cloud contains Grid contains Cloud. umm ...

Cloud 9

Everyone is talking about Clouds, and in the Grid community we are kind of looking at the best way to jump on the bandwagon, or integrate somehow. Although kind of vague, it seems that with Cloud computing we are somewhat closer to the original Grid vision than todays reality 'on the ground'.

... what's probably got you baffled more is what this thing here is for.

Kick off !

Welcome !

Tim Berners-Lee's initial motiviation for getting the World Wide Web going was to help scientists to collaborate and share information. Initially the Grid targetted scientists, giving them coordinated resource sharing, at a Global scale. Seems that there is some shared purpose here. However, Grid computing is currently operating in a somewhat different sphere. The Web is the natural environment for this stuff - Web computing not Grid computing.

The Grid is a Web application.