Task Distribution in a Workstation Cluster with a Concurrent Network
Frank Burchert, Michael Koch, Gunther Hipper, Djamshid Tavangarian · 1995
This paper concentrates on task allocation and load balancing within a Concurrent Network Architecture Cluster using simple strategies for distributing tasks. A sender initiated approach, a receiver initiated approach with reservation strategy, a deterministic Greedy algorithm similar to the sender initiated method and a gradient algorithm adapted to the special communication possibilities of CNA are investigated and compared. First results gained by simulation show that the gradient model load balancing method yields the best increase in performance. In addition, simple methods used to get parameters required by these load balancing algorithms in a UNIX environment are introduced. Key words distributed systems, load balancing, load sharing, workstation cluster 1. Introduction Over the past few years, claims respecting the performance of computer systems have grown steadily. In order to satisfy these claims, new techniques and architectures are necessary for both soft- and ha...