Optimizing Static Job Scheduling in a Network of Heterogeneous Computers

This paper investigates static job scheduling schemes that distribute workload in a network of computers with different speeds. Static schemes involve very low overhead and complexity compared to dynamic schemes, but can still provide significant performance improvement over the case of no load balancing. Optimization techniques are proposed for workload allocation and job dispatching. Workload allocation is modeled as a non-linear optimization problem and solved mathematically. It is shown that allocating a disproportionately high percentage of jobs to the more powerful computers improves system performance. The proposed job dispatching algorithm is an extension of the traditional round-robin scheme. The objective is to reduce burstiness in the job arrival stream to each computer. The schemes are evaluated by simulation experiments. Performance results verify their effectiveness in terms of mean response time, mean response ratio, and fairness. The Optimized RoundRobin (ORR) strategy which combines both techniques outperforms other static scheduling algorithms examined.