Remzi H. Arpaci, Amin M. Vahdat, Thomas Anderson and David A. Patterson
EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-94-838
October 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.
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}, Institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley}, 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