Grid resource allocation and reallocation for adaptable applications

This report summarizes the activities and main achievements that have resulted in the context of the CoreGRID network of excellence from REP 9 on resource allocation for adaptable applications. During this 4 months program, Jérémy Buisson (postdoc, CR14 INRIA) has collaborated with Dick Epema (associate professor, scientific contact in the hosting institute, CR06 TUD), Hashim Mohamed (PhD student, CR06 TUD) and Ozan Sonmez (PhD student, CR06 TUD). The program has been proposed in the context of making grid applications better use resources; despite resource availability varies frequently in platforms like grids. While dynamic adaptability makes applications handle varying resource allocations, this ability is useless as long as infrastructures and grid schedulers are not able to produce such allocations. Application adaptability is thus commonly not supported by most of the grid infrastructures. This is the issue that has been studied during the exchange program, of which the results are reported here. We have focused on making Koala, the grid scheduler developed by partner CR06 TUD, schedule malleable jobs. We have also investigated how applications based on Dynaco, the adaptability framework of partner CR14 INRIA, can take into account decisions made by the system-wide scheduler. The report is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the Koala grid scheduler and the Dynaco adaptability framework, which have been previously proposed by the partners involved in the program. Section 3 summarizes the results obtained during the program. Section 4 concludes the report with the implementation status of proposals that result from the program. It also relates those proposals with regard to the other activities of CoreGRID and gives some future directions.