Computer Systems

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Computer Systems

In recent years, grid computing technologies attracted a particular interest. Grid computing began to be used in the industries and variety of business areas. With the improvement of technology, there are more and more fields of grid application appear. Therefore, there is a reason to believe that grid computing can be the future of information technology.

“Grid is an infrastructure that involves the integrated and collaborative use of computers, networks, databases and scientific instruments owned and managed by multiple organizations” (Buyya 2005). Grid systems allow carrying out the decentralized management of computer resources and the use of standard and open protocols. This provides the scalability and security of such systems and promotes high quality service. Jacob, Brown, Fukui and Trivedi give an example in their book that common computers are loaded only by five present during the working day. In some cases, servers do not use all their power. Therefore, it would be helpful to find the application for unused computing power (8). Grid computing allows solving this problem. Grid combines many untapped power of computers and combines it into one powerful supercomputer that is able to deal with complex calculations and tasks. Grid requires the use of a special software called Grid Middleware. It provides a link between the user and provider of the computer resources.

One of the main advantages of grids: “it allows for linking a large number of low-cost machines together, rather than spending a large amount of money on a single machine or super-computer with a larger processing capability” (“How Grid Computing May Improve Systems’ Performance”). The economic attractiveness of grid computing promotes the active investment in the development and studies of these technologies.

Grid is often confused with other concepts, such as Internet, cluster or WEB. However, significant differences exist between these concepts. For example, in contrast to the WWW, Grid does not provide access to the information in the computers. Grid provides access only to the resources of storage and compute of data. Nevertheless, the Grid has a lot in common with Web services, because the basis of Grid work is the standardized protocols. Grid uses TCP / IP transport. Internet provides integration and interaction of a large number of hosts, and the grid coordinates the use of distributed resources. Grid allows running a variety of tasks, regardless of the geographical location of computer resources. At the same time, parallel cluster provides active interprocess exchange. Grid does not provide direct file exchanging, but “direct access to computers, storage, software, data and other resources” (Eslambolchi).

Grid computing can be used in various fields. It is implemented in radio astronomy, weather prediction. “Grid computing is now being used for other applications that include biology, medicine, earth sciences, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics” (“Grid Computing Applications”). Public domain SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) gained a lot of popularity among Internet users. People can volunteer to donate the unused capacity their computer for a broad search for extraterrestrial life. Grid computing is effectively used by government and international organizations. Many experts predict the successful use of grid computing in the military, medicine and education areas.

Peer network is one of many transmission methods. Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing allows sharing files of any size at a fairly high speed. The principle of peer-to-peer networks is simple enough to understand. This network integrates a large number of computers that have equal rights. Each participating computer of peer-to-peer network is called “the peer.” Each peer can act as a client and server. There are three P2P computer models: Multiple Peer Relationship, Distributed Peer Relationship and Collaborative Peer Relationship (Farago, “Peer-to-Peer Computing Overview”).

Peer-to-peer model has a number of significant advantages over client-server model. Since all peers are servers, then downloading of the file can occur from several computers simultaneously. Therefore, if some peers break the connection, downloading won’t be interrupted. File transfer speed depends on the number of peers and capabilities of the exchange channel. At the same time, in the client-server model the entire burden lies on the main server that hosts the data. In case of failure of communication between the client and the server, downloading will be interrupted. In this model, the transmission speed depends not only on the capabilities of the exchange channel, but the number of users who wish to receive the file. If there are many users, the speed decreases substantially. However, peer-to-peer networks have a large gap in the field of security. One of the solutions for pear-to-pear computing security: “use and develop open standards, in order to diversify the software used in the network” (Engle, and Khan 1-6).

However, due to the complexity of the search of the active peers that have requested files, peer-to-peer network is not used in its pure form. Hybrid networks help to solve the search problem. The hybrid model uses servers that coordinate the work of peers, find computers that contain the requested files and determine their status in the network. Peer-to-peer uses special software for communication between the peers. “P2P networks require installing an application on Internetconnected computers, which become nodes, or peers, that communicate with one another” (“Seven Things You Should Know About P2P”).

Napster is considered to be the first peer-to-peer network. It was the first file-sharing network in the world. It was a big breakthrough in the field of file-sharing and a huge problem for the copyright holders. Users were free to share audio and video products, as well as software. Therefore, the Napster was attacked by hundreds of lawsuits for copyright infringement. “Napster was first enjoined to deny certain queries (e.g. “Metallica”) and then to police its network for all copyrighted content” (Biddle et al 5). As a result, the company was closed in 2001. However, this company has given a rise to a lot of networks with similar principles of working. For example, BitTorrent is one of the most popular file sharing networks in the world. It allows users to share files at high speed and it is absolutely free. As a client application BitTorrent uses uTorrent, BitComet, BitSpirit, Azureus and other programs. These programs are easy to use and free of charge, it makes BitTorrent extremely popular. For many years, the companies and copyright holders unsuccessfully fight against these file-sharing networks. Many file sharing services are moving to the so-called magnet links, which reduce the size of the website and make it mobile, so even if the law enforcement agencies shut down the website, any user can restore the site from any computer device.

File sharing is not only the scope of peer-to-peer systems. Peer-to-peer systems can also interact with the grid computing to connect the remote computers for solving complex calculations. “While the earliest and most visible P2P systems were mainly file-sharing applications, current uses of P2P technology are much more diverse and include the distribution of data, software, media content, as well as Internet telephony and scientific computing” (Rodrigues, and Druschel 72-82). Despite of the fact that grid computing and P2P have many differences and individual characteristics, they have a common goal. This goal is utilization of distributed resources and their efficient use.

 

Works Cited

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