On the Duality of Resource Leases and Jobs

Today’s batch computing systems derive from a job scheduling paradigm. In contrast, utility service environments assign measured quantities of resources to long-running customer activities according to policies for resource matching and allocation. In this paper we explore the duality between job scheduling and utility resource management using a leasing abstraction that generalizes reservations. We suggest that advanced job management systems will increasingly incorporate elements of utility systems to support new capabilities for urgent computing, predictable execution of large composite workflows, manageability and customization, and technology trends such as server virtualization. We show that similar resource sharing policies may be implemented using either abstraction, and explore a design space of hybrid systems that combine leases and job scheduling to balance various objectives. Experiments compare and characterize representative models from the design space in terms of job scheduling and resource management.