Design, analysis, and implementation of distributed systems from a performance perspective
Elizabeth Ann Williams · 1983
A message-based approach to interprocess communication is widely accepted for distributed computing. A distributed program which consists of communicating processes runs on a distributed architecture which is specified by the number of processors, the speed of each processor, and the interconnection structure where the lines can have different capacities and lengths. A processor can communicate with any other processor by routing messages through intermediate processors over fixed paths. Scheduling problems arise in distributed environments. We have studied and developed heuristics for (1) initially assigning processes to processors and (2) selecting processor queueing disciplines. To observe and measure the behavior of distributed programs running on distributed architectures and using different scheduling strategies, we have provided a testbed which consists of a compiler and simulator to run CSP-like programs on user specified architectures. Using this testbed the scheduling heuristics were tested extensively on several algorithms on various architectures. The algorithms studied are a partial differential equation solver, distributed and centralized monitors for the multiple copy database problem, and a set of producer-consumer systems. For these systems the heuristics exhibited good behavior.