According to Wikipedia Grid computing is an emerging computer model which provides the ability to “perform higher throughput computing by taking advantage of many networked computers to model a virtual computer architecture that is able to distribute process execution across a parallel infrastructure”.

A Grid computer system (Grids) uses the resources of many separate machines connected by a intranet or Internet network. Grids provide the ability to perform computations on large data sets, by breaking them down into many smaller ones. It models a parallel division of labor between processes and enables the system to perform many more computations at once than would be possible on a single server.

Grid server environment needs a secure resource control, reliable network and service quality in order to be sustainable. A grid hosting model means that you have an independent, self-contained grid deployments run within isolated containers on shared resource provider sites. Websites and hosted grids interact via an underlying resource control plane to manage a dynamic binding of computational resources to containers.

Netcraft says that this year’s hot web hosting trend is grid computing. The objective of the web hosts is to build server clusters and to bring the advantages of enterprise-level infrastructure to shared hosting services. Mediatemple is one of the companies that offer Grid hosting. ServePath and Rackspace have also launched their own grid hosting service. They offer respectively UtilityServe and Mosso.

Other web hosting companies that offer grid hosting are Concentric and Data Return. Several more web host announced test.