Grid computing and SOA

For a great description of what grid computing really is, read this.

What they say about the connection to SOA, though, requires some clarification. Here's the quote:

There is a lot of talk going on about synergy between Grid Computing and SOA. It is however driven primarily by implementation concerns at this point rather than by any deeper considerations. Clearly, Grid Computing can deliver unchanged value without SOA, yet WS-* based implementation (such as Globus) can be beneficial in some cases (highly distributed heterogeneous environments that should only exist in unfortunate legacy-support situations).

The main thing that I want to call out is that "grids" don't cross service boundaries - not at the logical level anyway. Although, even if you did share a single grid infrastructure between services implementations, you may have some problems maintaining service-level agreements, autonomy may be put in danger.

Just something to keep in mind.

Check out related articles on Architecture, SOA, Autonomous Services, Scalability, Availability

Posted by Udi Dahan at 11:38 AM  Permalink