A Case Study of a Linux Grid on Windows Using Virtual Machines

Abstract

Computing demands for science and technology calculations, business use, and imaging techniques are continually rising. Grid computing that uses idle resources is discussed as a platform for such applications. Grid computing is a distributed technology that has high-throughput computing (HTC) as its principal objective. Moreover, several middleware solutions are offered as open source software, and thus a grid has the advantage that it can be constructed at a lower cost than a cluster. However, in current grids, it is not possible to use PCs running Windows OS. Therefore, we have chosen to use a virtual machine. In this paper, we compare a Linux grid of virtual machines with a similar Windows grid.