Load balancing fictions, falsehoods and fallacies

Effective use of a parallel computer requires that a calculation be careful ly divided among the processors. This load balancing problem appears in man y guises and has been a fervent area of research for the past decade or mor e. Although great progress has been made, and useful software tools develop ed, a number of challenges remain. It is the conviction of the author that these challenges will be easier to address if we first come to terms with s ome significant shortcomings in our current perspectives. This paper tries to identify several areas in which the prevailing point of view is either m istaken or insufficient. The goal is to motivate new ideas and directions f or this important field. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved .