Title
Characterizing and evaluating desktop grids: an empirical study
Abstract
Summary form only given. Desktop resources are attractive for running compute-intensive distributed applications. Several systems that aggregate these resources in desktop grids have been developed. While these systems have been successfully used for many high throughput applications there has been little insight into the detailed temporal structure of CPU availability of desktop grid resources. Yet, this structure is critical to characterize the utility of desktop grid platforms for both task parallel and even data parallel applications. We address the following questions: (i) What are the temporal characteristics of desktop CPU availability in an enterprise setting? (ii) How do these characteristics affect the utility of desktop grids? (iii) Based on these characteristics, can we construct a model of server "equivalents" for the desktop grids, which can be used to predict application performance? We present measurements of an enterprise desktop grid with over 220 hosts running the Entropia commercial desktop grid software. We utilize these measurements to characterize CPU availability and develop a performance model for desktop grid applications for various task granularities, showing that there is an optimal task size. We then use a cluster equivalence metric to quantify the utility of the desktop grid relative to that of a dedicated cluster.
Year
DOI
Venue
2004
10.1109/IPDPS.2004.1302936
IPDPS
Keywords
Field
DocType
grid computing,resource allocation,workstation clusters,CPU availability,cluster equivalence metric,compute-intensive distributed application,data parallel application,desktop grid resources,task parallel application,temporal structure
Grid computing,Computer science,Parallel computing,Grid file,Resource allocation,Software,Performance model,Throughput,Operating system,Grid,Empirical research,Distributed computing
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
0-7695-2132-0
125
6.84
References 
Authors
17
4
Search Limit
100125
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Derrick Kondo1154182.99
Taufer, M.21317.81
Charles L. Brooks III31198126.06
Casanova, H.41256.84