Cloud Computing, Grid hosting and Utility computing are terms which are often used to describe aspects of the same computing/Internet field but in reality refer to very different elements of the newest generation of hosted web services.

Grids are basically the infrastructure (physical & virtual) from which cloud and utility computing services are offered.

Utility computing services are pay-per-use resources which can be used only when required and Cloud computing services are those which connect multiple physical servers to work together as one virtual environment (or Cloud).

In basic principles, there is nothing new in the concept of Grid computing. The idea has been around since the old mainframe/client computing model but the following developments have now led to a revolution of the concept and a serious evolution of its capabilities. These are:

1.    Increased availability of high-bandwidth access between users and data centers
2.    Development of Virtualisation technology enabling different hardware platforms to be integrated physically
3.    Significant increases in both the capacity and application demand for CPU resources
4.    Demand for increased efficiency – and reduced costs - of hardware and energy utilisation
5.    Demand for application environments that can be accessible globally and scale instantly on demand.

Several companies have launched Grid/Utility/Cloud computing services, including Amazon and Google but one company is leading the way with a technology that can be offered by any hosting company, from any data center, using any hardware and very soon can be integrated with any other facility using the same platform.

The company is 3Tera and the platform is AppLogic.