Tf. Znati et Rg. Melhem, A UNIFORM FRAMEWORK FOR DYNAMIC LOAD BALANCING STRATEGIES IN DISTRIBUTED-PROCESSING SYSTEMS, Journal of parallel and distributed computing, 23(2), 1994, pp. 246-255
Citations number
19
Categorie Soggetti
Computer Sciences","Computer Science Theory & Methods
Load balancing plays a central role in processor utilizations in distr
ibuted systems. Several strategies have been proposed in the literatur
e to achieve load balancing. Usually, these strategies attempt to achi
eve a tradeoff between reducing the execution time of an application a
nd minimizing the synchronization and the communication overhead. In t
his paper, we present a general model in which load balancing decision
s are reached by enforcing performance metrics which may be adapted to
reflect the specific requirements of different environments. Many of
the load balancing schemes that have been suggested in the literature
can be viewed as specific instances of the general framework presented
in this paper. The basic scheme in this framework uses a load content
ion number that accounts for the load of the processors, the communica
tion cost and the distance among processors. It is meant to be adaptab
le to the overall load on the system, the load on the communication de
vices, the run time characteristics of the tasks, and the configuratio
n of the system. Furthermore, its implementation is not computationall
y complex. Thus, the gains made by load balancing are not overshadowed
by the load balancing cost. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.