Topic 6: Grid, cluster and cloud computing (Introduction)

Abstract

Grid and cloud computing have changed the IT landscape in the way we access and manage IT infrastructures. The use of computing resources has become essential for many applications in various areas. Both technologies provide easyto- use and on-demand access to large-scale infrastructures. The high number of submissions to "Topic 6: Grid, Cluster and Cloud Computing" reflected the importance of the research area. The papers addressed key challenges regarding design, deployment, operation and use of Grid and cloud infrastructures. Moreover, several innovative algorithms and methods for fundamental capabilities and services that are required in a heterogeneous environment, such as adaptability, scalability, reliability and security, and to support applications as diverse as ubiquitous local services, enterprise-scale virtual organizations, and internet-scale distributed supercomputing were proposed. Finally, many experimental evaluations and use-cases delivered an insight into the deployment in real-world scenarios and showed interesting future application domains. Each submission was reviewed by at least four reviewers and, finally, we were able to select nine high-quality papers. The papers were grouped in four sessions that are briefly summarized in following. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.