Parallel computing on heterogeneous workstation clusters has proved to be a very
efficient use of available resources, increasing their overall utilization. However, for it to be
a viable alternative to expensive, dedicated parallel machines, a number of key issues need
to be resolved. One of the major challenges of heterogeneous computing is coping with the
inherent heterogeneity of the system, with the availability of workstations from different
vendors of varying processing speeds and capabilities. The existence of multiple jobs and
users further complicates the task. The time taken for a parallel job is constrained by
the time taken by the slowest or the most heavily loaded workstation. Therefore, load
sharing of parallel computations is imperative in ensuring good overall utilization of the
system. Since load sharing is essentially independent of the particular parallel job being
run, the development of program independent, automatic, scheduling and load sharing
strategies have become vital to the efficient use of the heterogeneous cluster. This thesis
discusses various prior approaches to load sharing, examines a new strategy developed for
heterogeneous workstations, and evaluates its performance. / Graduation date: 1996
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/34688 |
| Date | 04 April 1995 |
| Creators | Jacob, Joseph, 1971- |
| Contributors | Saletore, Vikram |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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