Grid computing

Grid computing ：

Grid computing is another load-balanced parallel means of massive computation,
similar to clusters, but implemented with loosely coupled systems that may join and
leave the grid randomly. Most computers have extra CPU processing power that is not
being used many times throughout the day. So some smart people thought that was
wasteful and came up with a way to use all of this extra processing power. Just like the
power grid provides electricity to entities on an as-needed basis (if you pay your bill),
computers can volunteer to allow their extra processing power to be available to different
groups for different projects. The first project to use grid computing was SETI (Search
for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), where people allowed their systems to participate in
scanning the universe looking for aliens who are trying to talk to us.
Although this may sound similar to clustering, where in a cluster a central controller
has master control over allocation of resources and users to cluster nodes, and the
nodes in the cluster are under central management (in the same trust domain), in grid
computing the nodes do not trust each other and have no central control。

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