You don’t hear much about grid computing these days. That’s because the term, popularized in large measure by the now-Oracle-owned Sun Microsystems, has given way to cloud computing, where Web-based application delivery has supplanted batch systems.
Both the grid and cloud models depend on a large, distributed infrastructure, but with the latter, applications ricochet around the Internet more or less continuously, a sea change that accounts for a growing share of networking provider Cisco’s business. Server Watch has the story.
Cisco’s CTO for the Cloud, Lew Tucker, is no stranger to large-scale computing efforts. Tucker joined Cisco in late June and had previously worked for Sun Microsystems working on Sun’s cloud and large scale web property efforts.
At Cisco, Tucker’s responsibilities span multiple business units as the cloud includes enterprise, service provider and partner efforts. For Tucker, the cloud isn’t just a new name for grid computing or other previous efforts at large scale distributed computing, though there is a connection.