Adaptive Distributed Applications on Heterogeneous Networks

Distributed applications execute in environments that can include different network architectures as well as a range of compute platforms. Furthermore, these resources are shared by many users. Therefore these applications receive varying levels of service from the environment. Since the availability of resources in a networked environment often determines overall application performance, adaptivity is necessary for efficient execution and predictable response time. However, heterogeneous systems pose many challenges for adaptive applications. We discuss the range of situations that can benefit from adaptivity in the context of a set of system and environment parameters. Adaptive applications require information about the status of the execution environment and heterogeneous environments call for a portable system to provide such information. We discuss Remos (Resource Monitoring System), a system that allows applications to collect information about network and host conditions across different network architectures. Finally, we report our experience and performance results from a set of adaptive versions of Airshed pollution modeling application executing on a networking testbed.