Title
Dynamic load balancing with adaptive factoring methods in scientific applications
Abstract
To improve the performance of scientific applications with parallel loops, dynamic loop scheduling methods have been proposed. Such methods address performance degradations due to load imbalance caused by predictable phenomena like nonuniform data distribution or algorithmic variance, and unpredictable phenomena such as data access latency or operating system interference. In particular, methods such as factoring, weighted factoring, adaptive weighted factoring, and adaptive factoring have been developed based on a probabilistic analysis of parallel loop iterates with variable running times. These methods have been successfully implemented in a number of applications such as: N-Body and Monte Carlo simulations, computational fluid dynamics, and radar signal processing.The focus of this paper is on adaptive weighted factoring (AWF), a method that was designed for scheduling parallel loops in time-stepping scientific applications. The main contribution of the paper is to relax the time-stepping requirement, a modification that allows the AWF to be used in any application with a parallel loop. The modification further allows the AWF to adapt to load imbalance that may occur during loop execution. Results of experiments to compare the performance of the modified AWF with the performance of the other loop scheduling methods in the context of three nontrivial applications reveal that the performance of the modified method is comparable to, and in some cases, superior to the performance of the most recently introduced adaptive factoring method.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1007/s11227-007-0148-y
The Journal of Supercomputing
Keywords
Field
DocType
Dynamic load balancing,Adaptive weighted factoring
Dynamic programming,Signal processing,Supercomputer,Load balancing (computing),Computer science,Scheduling (computing),Parallel computing,Algorithm,Probabilistic analysis of algorithms,Loop scheduling,Factoring
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
44
1
0920-8542
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
25
0.89
22
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ricolindo L. Cariño1664.18
Ioana Banicescu239539.18