Remzi H. Arpaci and Amin M. Vahdat and Thomas Anderson and David A. Patterson

EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley

Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-94-838

, 1994

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1994/CSD-94-838.pdf

This paper examines the plausibility of using a network of workstations (NOW) for a mixture of parallel and sequential jobs. Through trace-driven simulation, our study identifies a number of results that should be of interest to NOW system designers. First, it is not sufficient to use workstation resources to provide a supercomputer only by night. Next, parallel programs can cause a significant number of lengthy delays to interactive users. Finally, simple scheduling techniques can identify available workstations and minimize user delays while providing parallel program performance comparable to a dedicated massively parallel processor. If these scheduling policies are employed, parallel programmers and interactive users can peacefully coexist on a NOW.

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BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Arpaci:CSD-94-838,
    Author= {Arpaci, Remzi H. and Vahdat, Amin M. and Anderson, Thomas and Patterson, David A.},
    Title= {Combining Parallel and Sequential Workloads on a Network of Workstations},
    Year= {1994},
    Month= {Oct},
    Url= {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1994/5748.html},
    Number= {UCB/CSD-94-838},
    Abstract= {This paper examines the plausibility of using a network of workstations (NOW) for a mixture of parallel and sequential jobs. Through trace-driven simulation, our study identifies a number of results that should be of interest to NOW system designers. First, it is not sufficient to use workstation resources to provide a supercomputer only by night. Next, parallel programs can cause a significant number of lengthy delays to interactive users. Finally, simple scheduling techniques can identify available workstations and minimize user delays while providing parallel program performance comparable to a dedicated massively parallel processor. If these scheduling policies are employed, parallel programmers and interactive users can peacefully coexist on a NOW.},
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Arpaci, Remzi H. 
%A Vahdat, Amin M. 
%A Anderson, Thomas 
%A Patterson, David A. 
%T Combining Parallel and Sequential Workloads on a Network of Workstations
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1994
%@ UCB/CSD-94-838
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1994/5748.html
%F Arpaci:CSD-94-838