A Resource-Aware Dynamic Load-Balancing Parallelization Algorithm in a Farmer-Worker Environment

Abstract

This paper describes an algorithm for dynamically assigning tasks to processing entities in a world where each task has a set of resource or service requirements and each processing entity a set of resources or service capabilities. A task needs to be assigned to a node that offers all required services and the set of tasks is finished within a minimal execution time frame. Dependability and adaptability are inherent to the algorithm so that it accounts for the varying execution time of each task or the failure of a processing node. The algorithm is based on a dependable technique for farmer-worker parallel programs and is enhanced for modeling the time constraints in combination with the required configuration set in a multidimensional resources model. This paper describes how the algorithm is used for dynamically load balancing and parallelizing the nightly tests of a digital television content-processing embedded device.