A facility that houses critical computer systems and associated components. Data centers generally include environmental controls (air conditioning, fire suppression, etc.), backup power supplies, redundant network connections and high security.

 

Larger enterprises may have multiple data centers, often geographically distant but connected by high-capacity network connections.  Conversely, in an outsourcing environment multiple enterprises may share resources housed in a single data center.

A grid is a system that is concerned with the integration, virtualization, and management of services and resources in a distributed, heterogeneous environment that supports collections of users and resources (virtual organizations) across traditional administrative and organizational domains (real organizations).

Less formally, a grid computing environment combines distributed pools of resources onto which applications or services may be dynamically provisioned and re-provisioned, to improve economy, efficiency, agility, performance, scaling, resilience and utilization. The contributed resources are often consolidated from numerous smaller pools, where they may have been under-utilized, and as a result grids tend to be heterogeneous.

Grids offer great flexibility, as resources can be re-purposed or re‑provisioned in line with an organization’s changing goals.  They typically focus on services rather than components, and are built using architectural styles such as service-oriented architecture, which are disaggregated or distributed in nature and can leverage the properties of the available resources.  Key requirements for successful grid implementation and management include standardization of the interfaces of common components, and the use of standardized information and data models.

Grid computing is related to, but subtly different from, utility computing.