Big Words About Lots-o-Computers

Virtualization. Some people have described this as the single biggest technology of the decade. I don’t have a quote on that, but I vaguely recall reading it in the pages of eWeek late one night when I couldn’t sleep. But what is it? It turns out that computers today are so insanely powerful that people have figured out that a single computer can simultaneously run multiple instances of an operating system. For example, you might have four copies of Windows running side by side on a single computer, sharing processor time, memory and hard drive space. That’s virtualization. It sounds like something that wouldn’t concern us programmers, but it is something for us to be aware of, because so many companies are moving towards it.

Grid computing. This is the next step up from virtualization, and isn’t all that different from distributed computing. What it mainly refers to is having several computers on the Internet all work together, sharing data and dividing up processing, with the sometimes goal being to have thousands of computers working together to effectively become one giant supercomputer (but without the “to rule the world” aspect, at least hopefully). And for some cool projects that you can explore, check out the Wikipedia entry, and scroll down to the section called Standards and APIs. Also check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globus_Toolkit.

Cloud computing. Really? Yes, cloud computing, as in those white fluffy things in the sky, where our minds go when our boss is talking. This is where the previous two items come together. Take massive grid computing (yeah, man) distributed throughout the Internet, and all the different grids working together, including virtual servers, and put a “thin client” (that is, a browser or some other client program) on a computer and you have... cloud computing! The whole foggy idea is that the Internet is the “cloud” and we’re just tying into it, with our puny little laptops and handheld phones becoming clients that are able to run software remotely in the cloud, making us feel like we have supercomputers at our fingertips. And yes, if you search the web for definitions of “cloud computing” you’ll find that the definition itself is rather cloudy. But what the hey: If you work for a big online publication or for a PR firm representing a big tech company, toss around the term and you’ll become popular and make friends—friends who won’t have any idea what the word means either, even though they claim they do.