Clouding Of The Grid

A while back, I read “Cloud computing is grid, but easier.” Maybe. I believe cloud computing is different and not all that close to grid. In addition, I believe the challenges presented by creating grids coupled with virtualization actually opened the door for cloud computing. I’ll back up my arguments in a minute, but first I invite you to take a look at a grid article from 2004 written by Ian Foster — the architect of the grid concept.

So what is a grid? Foster defined three criteria for a grid…