Below are some snippets to help non specialists understand some of the terms used in this blog. Much of this has been taken from Wikipedia:
High Performance Computing (HPC) - uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
Grid computing - The Grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files. What distinguishes grid computing from conventional high performance computing systems such as cluster computing is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Although a grid can be dedicated to a specialized application, it is more common that a single grid will be used for a variety of different purposes. Grids are often constructed with the aid of general-purpose grid software libraries known as middleware.
Cluster - A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely thus in many respects forming a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.
Cloud computing - Cloud computing is location independent computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Or more simply, remote computing. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture and utility computing. Details are abstracted from consumers, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.
Compute Element (CE) - Also called a Head Node. In the Grid paradigm its main functions are to manage job submissions and update the WMS on the status of the jobs. In HPC it often hosts the home directories of the users, and shares these directories with the worker nodes via NFS.
Workload Management System (WMS) - Accepts and satisfies requests for job management and resources from users. It will pass the job to an appropriate CE for execution taking into account the job requirements and the preferences expressed in the job description.
Worker Node (WN) - A host (computer) normally with a a large number of powerful CPUs and a significant amount of RAM. This is where the actual jobs are run. The submission of jobs to the WN and the return of the results is managed by the CE.
Information Systems (TopBDII and SiteBDII) - In the grid environment each site has an information index, the SiteBDII, which publishes resources at the site to the TopBDII. This provides a central point of resource allocation for a Grid VO.
Virtual Organization (VO) - A group of individuals or institutions who share the computing resources of a "grid" for a common goal.
PBS Torque Maui - Portable Batch System (or simply PBS) is the name of computer software that performs job scheduling. Its primary task is to allocate computational tasks, i.e., batch jobs, among the available computing resources. It is often used in conjunction with UNIX cluster environments. Torque is a derivative of OpenPBS that is actively developed, supported and maintained by Cluster Resources Inc. Maui is an open source job scheduler for clusters and supercomputers often used to replace the default PBS scheduler.
High Performance Computing (HPC) - uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
Grid computing - The Grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files. What distinguishes grid computing from conventional high performance computing systems such as cluster computing is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Although a grid can be dedicated to a specialized application, it is more common that a single grid will be used for a variety of different purposes. Grids are often constructed with the aid of general-purpose grid software libraries known as middleware.
Cluster - A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely thus in many respects forming a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.
Cloud computing - Cloud computing is location independent computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Or more simply, remote computing. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture and utility computing. Details are abstracted from consumers, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.
Compute Element (CE) - Also called a Head Node. In the Grid paradigm its main functions are to manage job submissions and update the WMS on the status of the jobs. In HPC it often hosts the home directories of the users, and shares these directories with the worker nodes via NFS.
Workload Management System (WMS) - Accepts and satisfies requests for job management and resources from users. It will pass the job to an appropriate CE for execution taking into account the job requirements and the preferences expressed in the job description.
Worker Node (WN) - A host (computer) normally with a a large number of powerful CPUs and a significant amount of RAM. This is where the actual jobs are run. The submission of jobs to the WN and the return of the results is managed by the CE.
Information Systems (TopBDII and SiteBDII) - In the grid environment each site has an information index, the SiteBDII, which publishes resources at the site to the TopBDII. This provides a central point of resource allocation for a Grid VO.
Virtual Organization (VO) - A group of individuals or institutions who share the computing resources of a "grid" for a common goal.
PBS Torque Maui - Portable Batch System (or simply PBS) is the name of computer software that performs job scheduling. Its primary task is to allocate computational tasks, i.e., batch jobs, among the available computing resources. It is often used in conjunction with UNIX cluster environments. Torque is a derivative of OpenPBS that is actively developed, supported and maintained by Cluster Resources Inc. Maui is an open source job scheduler for clusters and supercomputers often used to replace the default PBS scheduler.