Grid Computing In Distributed GIS
Grid Computing
Some consider this to function as "the third it wave" after the Internet and Web, and you will be the backbone of another generation of services and applications that are going to further the study and development of GIS and related areas.
Grid computing allows for the sharing of processing power, enabling the attainment of high performances in computing, management and services. Grid computing, (unlike the traditional supercomputer that does parallel computing by linking multiple processors over something bus) runs on the network of computers to execute a program. The issue of using multiple computers is based on the issue of dividing up the tasks on the list of computers, without needing to reference portions of the code being executed on other CPUs.
Parallel processing
Parallel processing may be the usage of multiple CPU's to execute different parts of a program together. Remote sensing and surveying equipment have been providing vast amounts of spatial information, and how exactly to manage, process or dispose of this data have become major issues in the field of Geographic Information Science (GIS).
To solve these problems there's been much research into the section of parallel processing of GIS information. This calls for the utilization of an individual computer with multiple processors or multiple computers which are connected over a network working on the same task. There are various forms of distributed computing, two of the most common are clustering and grid processing.
The primary reasons for using parallel computing are:
Saves time.
Solve larger problems.
Provide concurrency (do multiple things as well).
Taking advantage of non-local resources - using available computing resources on a broad area network, and even the Internet when local computing resources are scarce.
Cost benefits - using multiple cheap computing resources rather than paying for time on a supercomputer.
Overcoming memory constraints - single computers have very finite memory resources. For large problems, using the memories of multiple computers may overcome this obstacle.
Limits to serial computing - both physical and practical reasons pose significant constraints to simply building ever faster serial computers.
Limits to miniaturization - processor technology is allowing a growing amount of transistors to be placed on a chip.
However, even with molecular or atomic-level components, a limit will undoubtedly be reached on what small components can be.
Economic limitations - it really is increasingly expensive to make a single processor faster. Utilizing a larger number of moderately fast commodity processors to attain the same (or better) performance is less expensive.
The future: in the past 10 years, the trends indicated by ever faster networks, distributed systems, and multi-processor computer architectures (even at the desktop level) clearly show that parallelism may be the future of computing.
Distributed GIS
As the development of GIS sciences and technologies go further, increasingly amount of geospatial and non-spatial data are involved in GISs due to more diverse data sources and development of data collection technologies. GIS data are usually geographically and logically distributed as well as GIS functions and services do. Spatial analysis and Geocomputation are receiving more complex and computationally intensive. Sharing and collaboration among geographically dispersed users with various disciplines with various purposes are getting more necessary and common. A dynamic collaborative model " Middleware" is necessary for GIS application.
Computational Grid is introduced as a possible solution for the next generation of GIS. Basically, the Grid computing concept is intended make it possible for coordinate resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multi-organizational virtual organizations by linking computing resources with high-performance networks. Grid computing technology represents a fresh method of collaborative computing and problem solving in data intensive and computationally intensive environment and contains the chance to satisfy all of the requirements of a distributed, high-performance and collaborative GIS. Extra resources|Find more info and Grid computing technologies as solutions of requirements and challenges are introduced make it possible for this distributed, parallel, and high-throughput, collaborative GIS application.
Security
Security issues in that wide area distributed GIS is crucial, which include authentication and authorization using community policies as well as allowing local control of resource. Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI), coupled with GridFTP protocol, makes sure that sharing and transfer of geospatial data and Geoprocessing are secure in the Computational Grid environment.
Conclusion
As the conclusion, Grid computing gets the chance to lead GIS right into a new "Grid-enabled GIS" age with regards to computing paradigm, resource sharing pattern and online collaboration.