Distributed computing feasibility in a non-dedicated homogeneous distributed system

• Published in: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM/IEEE conference on Supercomputing pp. 143 - 152
• Main Authors: Leutenegger, S. T., Sun, X.-H.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 01.12.1993; IEEE
• Series: ACM Conferences
• Subjects: Availability; Computer architecture; Computer systems organization > Architectures > Distributed architectures; Computing methodologies > Modeling and simulation > Simulation types and techniques > Discrete-event simulation; Computing methodologies > Parallel computing methodologies > Parallel programming languages; Concurrent computing; Costs; Distributed computing; Local area networks; NASA; Parallel processing; Software and its engineering > Software notations and tools > General programming languages > Language types > Parallel programming languages; Software and its engineering > Software organization and properties > Software system structures > Distributed systems organizing principles; Sun; Workstations
• ISBN: 0818643404; 9780818643408
• ISSN: 1063-9535
• DOI: 10.1145/169627.169673

The authors address the feasibility of a nondedicated parallel processing environment, assuming workstation processes have preemptive priority over parallel tasks. They develop an analytical model to predict parallel job response times. The model provides insight into how significantly the workstation owner interference degrades parallel program performance. A new term, task ratio, which relates the parallel task demand to the mean service demand of nonparallel workstation processes, is introduced. It is proposed that the task ratio is a useful metric for determining how large the demand of a parallel applications must be in order to make efficient use of a nondedicated distributed system.