[Beowulf] Differenz between a Grid and a Cluster???

Dean Michael Berris mikhailberis at free.net.ph
Tue Sep 20 09:00:39 PDT 2005

On Fri, 2005-09-16 at 14:28 +0200, Sebastian wrote:
> Hello,
> i really need your help to this question. What is the differenz between a
> Grid (or Grid Computing) and a Cluster?

In the case of Grid Computing, it particularly pertains to computing on
demand -- or utility computing. Think of the electricity grid, wherein
you don't really know where the electricity you're using is being
produced. However usually, nodes in a compute Grid also comprise of

Think of a Grid as an abstraction or interface into a collection of
computing resources available at your disposal -- your entry point would
be something like a batch submission system, or a head node you can log
into and submit your jobs. You don't really know where and how it gets
computed, but all you should worry about is that it does. Much like how
you don't have to worry about how or where the electricity is produced,
but just that you plug into the socket and you get the electricity you

There are a lot of different prototypes out there, but basically grids
are still built of independent clusters working together to provide
utility computing services to different audiences. If I'm not mistaken,
there are a couple of grids already up and running the world -- one for
medical grid computing here in Southeast Asia, while there are other
grids in the United States, even crossing the Atlantic over to Europe.
This was true a couple of years ago, but I think the veterans of the
list would be more able to give better examples and better
differentiations between clusters and grids.

> There is very much literature in the net but mostly it is quite different
> among each other.
> What are the main points for Grid and Cluster?

Basically a grid is a collection of computing resources that allows for
utility computing (or computing on demand) spanning different autonomous
and collaborative units.

Clusters are a collection of computers working together to solve a
common problem either as a loosely coupled parallel computer (High
Performance Cluster) or as a redundant pool of resources (High
Availability Cluster).

> Kind regards,
> Sebastian
Dean Michael C. Berris <mikhailberis at free.net.ph>
GPG Key: 0x08AE6EAC
Mobile: +63 928 7291459
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/attachments/20050921/221c69d7/attachment.sig>

More information about the Beowulf mailing list