What is Grid Computing?
The concept of the Grid - a means of pooling resources on a WAN (wide area network) - has been around in some form or another since the 1970's. With the huge increase in the quality and speed of the internet, Grid computing now has the potential to pool resources spread across the globe.
The aim is to provide transparent access to resources for the user, namely processing power and data storage. The grid should be able to handle the job such that the user doesn't have to consider any physical aspect of the job, like the location of the data and the location the job runs. The Grid should handle all aspects of the job and structure the processes such that the system achieves maximum efficiency.
Workload Management System
The Workload Management System (WMS) is the key part of the Grid, it is the software which manages the jobs and using algorithms assigns the jobs to the Computing Elements in an efficient manner.
The Globus Toolkit is a mature powerful Grid WMS used by EGEE the global Grid science project managed by Cern with over 20,000 CPU's at Universities and Data Centres across the globe.