ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GRID WORKFLOWS
Simon Ostermann, Radu Prodan, Thomas Fahringer, Dick H. J. Epema · 2008
Abstract Grid computing promises to enable a reliable and easy-to-use computational infrastructure for e-Science. To materialize this promise, grids need to provide full automation from the experiment design to the final result. Often, this automation relies on the execution of workflows, that is, of jobs comprising many inter-related computing and data transfer tasks. While several grid workflow execution tools already exist, not much is known about their workload. This lack of knowledge hampers the development of new workflow scheduling algorithms, and slows the tuning of existing ones. To address this situation, in this work we present an analysis of two workflow-based workload traces from the Austrian Grid. We introduce a method for analyzing such traces, focused on the intrinsic and on the environment-related characteristics of the workflows. Then, we analyze the workflows executed in the Austrian Grid over the last two years. Finally, we identify six categories of workflows based on their intrinsic workflow characteristics. We show that the six categories exhibit distinctive environmentrelated characteristics, and identify the categories that are difficult to execute for common workflow schedulers.