Gang scheduling has been widely used as a practical solution to the dynamic parallel job scheduling problem. To overcome some of the limitations of traditional Gang scheduling algorithms, Concurrent Gang is proposed as a class of scheduling policies which allows the flexible and simultaneous scheduling of multiple parallel jobs. It hence improves the space sharing characteristics of Gang scheduling while preserving all other advantages. To provide a sound analysis of Concurrent Gang performance, a novel methodology based on the traditional concept of competitive ratio is also introduced. Dubbed dynamic competitive ratio, the new method is used to compare dynamic bin packing algorithms used in this paper. These packing algorithms apply to the Concurrent Gang scheduling of a workload generated by a statistical model. Moreover, dynamic competitive ratio is the figure of merit used to evaluate and compare packing strategies for job scheduling under multiple constraints. It will be shown that for the unidimensional case there is a small difference between the performance of best fit and first fit; first fit can hence be used without significant system degradation. For the multidimensional case, when memory is also considered, we concluded that the packing algorithm must try to balance the resource utilization in all dimensions simulataneously, instead of given priority to only one dimension of the problem.
Multi-capacity bin packing algorithms with applications to job scheduling under multiple constraints
