Topic 17: Metacomputing and Grid Computing

The growing number of computers accessible through a network, such as the Internet, has meant that these computers can be collectively employed to solve complex problems. Since the networks that connect such machines are distributed, many attempts have been made to create an infrastructure for distributing large scale applications across regional and national boundaries, to enable nation-scale or continent-scale computing to be realized. The components within such an infrastructure can also range in complexity from workstation clusters to dedicated parallel machines and data repositories.