Cloud Computing

A cluster is a collection of parallel or distributed processing systems that consists of a collection of interconnected standalone computers working together as a single integrated computing resource. Clusters offer high performance, expandability, scalability, high throughput, and high availability at a very low cost. Clusters are used mainly for high availability, load-balancing, and computing purpose. They are used for high availability purposes as they maintain redundant nodes which are used to provide service when system components fail. The performance of the system is improved here because even if one node fails there is another standby node that will carry the task and eliminates single points of failure without any hindrance [5]. When multiple computers are linked together in a cluster, they share the computational workload as a single virtual computer. The user’s requests are received and distributed among all the standalone computers to form a cluster. This results in balanc...

Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems are distributed systems in which nodes of equal roles and capabilities exchange information and services directly with each other. P2P has emerged as a popular way to share huge volumes of data. Sharing such large volumes of data is made possible by distributing the main costs – disk space for storing the files and bandwidth for transferring them – across the peers in the network. In addition to the ability to pool together and harness large amounts of resources, the strengths of existing P2P systems include self-organization, load-balancing, adaptation, and fault tolerance. Because of these desirable qualities, many research projects have been focused on understanding the issues surrounding these systems and improving their performance. Figure 3: Shows a peer-to-peer network Benefits of peer-to-peer networks 1. Software used Any windows and macOS can work to make a peer-to-peer network. You don’t need any network operating system. I mean you don’t need a win...

Utility computing depicts how the computing needs of users can be fulfilled. Its analogy is derived from the real world where service providers maintain and supply utility services, such as electrical power, gas, and water to consumers. Consumers in turn pay service providers based on their usage. Therefore, the underlying design of utility computing is based on a service provisioning model, where users (consumers) pay providers for using computing power only when they need to .  The utility computing model offers a number of benefits to both service providers and users. From the provider’s perspective, actual hardware and software components are not set up or configured to satisfy a single solution or user, as in the case of traditional computing. Instead, virtualized resources are created and assigned dynamically to various users when needed. Providers can thus reallocate resources easily and quickly to users that have the highest demands . Utility computing is a subset of cloud ...

The grand vision is often presented as an analogy to power grids where users (or electrical appliances) get access to electricity through wall sockets with no care or consideration for where or how the electricity is actually generated. Grid Computing aims to enable resource sharing and coordinated problem-solving in dynamic, multi-institutional virtual organizations.  we could spur the creation of a Computing Grid, analogous in form and utility to the electric power grid. The key element of grid computing is the underlying distributed computing infrastructure that supports cross-organization resource sharing. Grid computing uses parallel processing where a program is divided into several tasks and each computer on the grid is assigned a task to work on. The output is a combination of results from all computers on the grid.  Figure 1: Shows how grid computing works. Credit to ecomputernotes.com for the image. Benefits of grid computing 1. Ability to exploit underutilized resou...