Scheduling algorithm based on critical tasks in heterogeneous environments

Heterogeneous computing is one effective method of high performance computing with many advantages. Task scheduling is a critical issue in heterogeneous environments as well as in homogeneous environments. A number of task scheduling algorithms for homogeneous environments have been proposed, whereas, a few for heterogeneous environments can be found in the literature. A novel task scheduling algorithm for heterogeneous environments, called the heterogeneous critical task （HCT） scheduling algorithm is presented. By means of the directed acyclic graph and the gantt graph, the HCT algorithm defines the critical task and the idle time slot. After determining the critical tasks of a given task, the HCT algorithm tentatively duplicates the critical tasks onto the processor that has the given task in the idle time slot, to reduce the start time of the given task. To compare the performance of the HCT algorithm with several recently proposed algorithms, a large set of randomly generated applications and the Gaussian elimination application are randomly generated. The experimental result has shown that the HCT algorithm outperforms the other algorithm.

An optimal scheduling algorithm based on task duplication

When the communication time is relatively shorter than the computation time for every task, the task duplication based scheduling (TDS) algorithm proposed by Darbha and Agrawal generates an optimal schedule. Park and Choe also proposed an extended TDS algorithm whose optimality condition is less restricted than that of TDS algorithm, but the condition is very complex and is difficult to satisfy when the number of tasks is large. An efficient algorithm is proposed whose optimality condition is less restricted and simpler than both of the algorithms, and the schedule length is also shorter than both of the algorithms. The time complexity of the proposed algorithm is O(v2), where v represents the number of tasks.

Clustering and Scheduling Method Based on Task Duplication

A new heuristic approach that resembles the evolution of interpersonal relationships in human society is put forward for the problem of scheduling multitasks represented by a directed acyclic graph. The algorithm includes dynamic-group, detachgraph and front-sink components. The priority rules used are new. Relationship number, potentiality, weight and merge degree are defined for cluster＇s priority, and task potentiality for tasks＇ priority. Experiments show the algorithm could get good result in short time. The algorithm produces another optimal solution for the classic MJD benchmark. Its average performance is better than five latter-day representative algorithms, especially six benchmarks of the nines.

Task scheduling scheme by checkpoint sharing and task duplication in P2P-based desktop grids

A scheduling scheme is proposed to reduce execution time by means of both checkpoint sharing and task duplication under a peer-to-peer(P2P) architecture. In the scheme, the checkpoint executed by each peer(i.e., a resource) is used as an intermediate result and executed in other peers via its duplication and transmission. As the checkpoint is close to a final result, the reduction of execution time for each task becomes higher, leading to reducing turnaround time. To evaluate the performance of our scheduling scheme in terms of transmission cost and execution time, an analytical model with an embedded Markov chain is presented. We also conduct simulations with a failure rate of tasks and compare the performance of our scheduling scheme with that of the existing scheme based on client-server architecture. Performance results show that our scheduling scheme is superior to the existing scheme with respect to the reduction of execution time and turnaround time.