Rate of Change Load Balancing in Distributed and Parallel Systems

Dynamic Load Balancing is an important system function destined to distribute workload among available processors to improve throughput and/or execution times of parallel computer programs either uniform or non-uniform (jobs whose workload varies at run-time in unpredictable ways). Non-uniform computation and communication requirements may bog down a parallel computer if no efficient load distribution is effected. A novel distributed algorithm for load balancing is proposed and is based on local Rate of Change observations rather than on global absolute load numbers. It is a totally distributed algorithm and requires no centralized trigger and/or decision makers. The strategy is discussed and analysed by means of experimental simulation.