Experimental Analysis of Timing Validation Methods for Distributed Real-Time Systems

Scheduling jobs dynamically on processors is likely to achieve better performance in multiprocessor and distributed real-time systems. Exhaustive methods for determining whether all jobs complete by their deadlines, in systems that use modern priority-driven scheduling strategies, are often infeasible or unreliable since the execution time of each job may vary. We previously published research results on finding worst-case bounds and efficient algorithms for validating systems in which independent jobs have arbitrary release times and deadlines, and are scheduled on processors dynamically in a priority-driven manner. An efficient method has been proposed to determine how late the completion times of jobs can be in dynamic systems where the jobs are preemptable and nonmigratable. This paper further presents the performance characteristics of the proposed methods, and shows its soundness by providing extensive simulation results. The worst-case completion times of jobs obtained with the proposed methods are compared with the values by simulations under different workload characteristics. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm performs considerably well for diverse workloads. Considering the previous work showed the unlikelihood of finding tighter bounds than the one given in the paper, the simulation results indicate that the proposed methods effectively constitute a theoretical basis needed for a comprehensive validation strategy that is capable of dealing with dynamic distributed real-time systems.     

实时异构系统中的积极复制容错调度算法

在设计实时异构系统中的容错调度算法时,既要考虑到实时性的约束,又要最大化系统的可靠性.此外,异构系统中的并行应用调度问题已经被证明了是NP完全问题.现有的容错调度算法大多采用复制技术来提升系统的可靠性,但是任务的多次执行会导致应用执行时间变长,系统实时性下降.为此,提出了一个基于积极复制技术的容错调度算法,该算法连续的复制任务集中对当前系统实时性影响最小的任务,然后将任务集中的所有任务调度至最早完成的处理器,用以在满足实时性约束的同时,提升系统的可靠性.实验表明,相比于同样着眼于实时异构系统的DB-FTSA算法,该算法在实时性约束严格的情况下,可靠性有较大提升.     

网络集群计算系统中的并行任务调度

基于多处理机并行任务调度模型，探讨网络集群计算系统中的并行任务调度问题，首先证明了一般网络集群计算系统中调度算法的可近似性难度，然后提出了三种不同的启发式算法：最大长度优先调度算法、最大宽度优先调度算法和最大面积优先调度算法；然后根据大量的模拟实验对这些算法以及文献中已提出的调度算法进行了比较分析，结果表明该文的启发式算法比文献中的算法在性能上效果更好。     

异构分布式系统混合型实时容错调度算法

基/副版本技术是实现实时分布式系统容错的一个重要手段。提出了一种异构分布式混合型容错模型,该模型与传统的异构分布式实时调度模型相比同时考虑了周期和非周期调度任务。在此基础上给出3种容错调度算法:以可调度性为目的SSA算法、以可靠性为目的RSA算法、以负载均衡性为目的BSA算法。算法能够在异构系统中同时调度具有周期和非周期容错需求的实时任务,且能够保证在异构系统中某节点机失效情况下,实时任务仍然能在截止时间内完成。最后从可调度性、可靠性代价、负载均衡性、周期与非周期任务数及任务周期与粒度J个方面对算法进行了分析。模拟实验结果显示算法各有优缺点,所以在选择调度算法时应该根据异构系统的特点来选择。     

A parallel matching algorithm for convex bipartite graphs and applications to scheduling

An efficient parallel algorithm to obtain maximum matchings in convex bipartite graphs is developed. This algorithm can be used to obtain efficient parallel algorithms for several scheduling problems. Some examples are: job scheduling with release times and deadlines; scheduling to minimize maximum cost; and preemptive scheduling to minimize maximum completion time.     

New Algorithms for Resource Reclaiming from Precedence Constrained Tasks in Multiprocessor Real-Time Systems

The scheduling of tasks in multiprocessor real-time systems has attracted many researchers in the recent past. Tasks in these systems have deadlines to be met, and most of the real-time scheduling algorithms use worst case computation times to schedule these tasks. Many resources will be left unused if the tasks are dispatched purely based on the schedule produced by these scheduling algorithms, since most of the tasks will take less time to execute than their respective worst case computation times. Resource reclaiming refers to the problem of reclaiming the resources left unused by a real-time task when it takes less time to execute than its worst case computation time. In this paper, we propose two algorithms to reclaim these resources from real-time tasks that are constrained by precedence relations and resource requirements, in shared memory multiprocessor systems. We introduce a notion called a restriction vector for each task which captures its resource and precedence constraints with other tasks. This will help not only in the efficient implementation of the algorithms, but also in obtaining an improvement in performance over the reclaiming algorithms proposed in earlier work [[2]]. We compare our resource reclaiming algorithms with the earlier algorithms and, by experimental studies, show that they reclaim more resources, thereby increasing the guarantee ratio (the ratio of the number of tasks guaranteed to meet their deadlines to the number of tasks that have arrived), which is the basic requirement of any resource reclaiming algorithm. From our simulation studies, we demonstrate that complex reclaiming algorithms with high reclaiming overheads do not lead to an improvement in the guarantee ratio.     

Disseminating data with time constraint based on multichannel over ubiquitous computing environments

Time-constrained service plays an important role in ubiquitous services. However, the resource constraints of ubiquitous computing systems make it difficult to satisfy timing requirements of supported strategies. In this study, we study scheduling strategies for mobile data program with timing constraints in the form of deadlines. Unlike previously proposed scheduling algorithms for mobile systems which aim to minimize the mean access time, our goal is to identify scheduling algorithms for ubiquitous systems that ensure requests meet their deadlines. We present a study of the performance of traditional real-time strategies, and demonstrate that traditional real-time algorithms do not always perform the best in a mobile environment. We propose an efficient scheduling algorithm, called scheduling priority of mobile data with time constraint(SPMT), which is designed for timely delivery of data to mobile clients. The experimental results show that our approach outperforms other approaches over performance criteria.     

预测调度算法在平行机问题中的应用

常用的实时生产调度的在线算法由于只利用当前已到达的工件信息,导致调度性能不够理想。针对复杂度较高的平行机调度问题,通过对在线算法OMPR(单机可中断松弛)的改进,设计了一种具体的预测调度算法PPSA(平行机预测调度算法)。预测调度算法合理地把预知信息与已知信息结合起来进行决策,使调度解的性能得到进一步提高。仿真分析显示,该算法的性能明显优于在线算法OMPR,表明预测调度算法是一种计算简单、性能优良的实时调度算法。     

Wireless real-time on-demand data broadcast scheduling with dual deadlines

In this paper, issues involved in the design of real-time on-demand broadcast system which maintains data temporal constraints are discussed. We propose a new online scheduling algorithm, called RDDS that incorporates access frequency, data size, request-deadline and data-deadline of pending requests for real-time on-demand broadcast system with dual deadlines. Furthermore, the concepts of deferrable requests and non-deferrable requests are introduced, cases of non-deferrable requests are analyzed, and Non-deferrable Request First policy is proposed and integrated into RDDS to form another new algorithm, called RDDS-W. We have performed a series of simulation experiments to evaluate the performance of our algorithms as compared with other previously proposed methods. The experimental results show that our algorithms can substantially outperform other algorithms under a wide range of scenarios, especially when combining with Non-deferrable Request First policy, which improves the performance significantly.     

Speed Scaling on Parallel Processors

In this paper we investigate dynamic speed scaling, a technique to reduce energy consumption in variable-speed microprocessors. While prior research has focused mostly on single processor environments, in this paper we investigate multiprocessor settings. We study the basic problem of scheduling a set of jobs, each specified by a release date, a deadline and a processing volume, on variable-speed processors so as to minimize the total energy consumption. We first settle the problem complexity if unit size jobs have to be scheduled. More specifically, we devise a polynomial time algorithm for jobs with agreeable deadlines and prove NP-hardness results if jobs have arbitrary deadlines. For the latter setting we also develop a polynomial time algorithm achieving a constant factor approximation guarantee. Additionally, we study problem settings where jobs have arbitrary processing requirements and, again, develop constant factor approximation algorithms. We finally transform our offline algorithms into constant competitive online strategies.     

Adaptive energy-efficient scheduling for real-time tasks on DVS-enabled heterogeneous clusters

Developing energy-efficient clusters not only can reduce power electricity cost but also can improve system reliability. Existing scheduling strategies developed for energy-efficient clusters conserve energy at the cost of performance. The performance problem becomes especially apparent when cluster computing systems are heavily loaded. To address this issue, we propose in this paper a novel scheduling strategy–adaptive energy-efficient scheduling or AEES–for aperiodic and independent real-time tasks on heterogeneous clusters with dynamic voltage scaling. The AEES scheme aims to adaptively adjust voltages according to the workload conditions of a cluster, thereby making the best trade-offs between energy conservation and schedulability. When the cluster is heavily loaded, AEES considers voltage levels of both new tasks and running tasks to meet tasks’ deadlines. Under light load, AEES aggressively reduces the voltage levels to conserve energy while maintaining higher guarantee ratios. We conducted extensive experiments to compare AEES with an existing algorithm–MEG, as well as two baseline algorithms–MELV, MEHV. Experimental results show that AEES significantly improves the scheduling quality of MELV, MEHV and MEG.     

Reliability-conscious energy management for fixed-priority real-time embedded systems with weakly hard QoS-constraint

Aggressive scaling in technology size has dramatically increased the power density and degraded the reliability of real-time embedded systems. In this paper, we study the problem of reliability-conscious energy minimization for scheduling fixed-priority real-time embedded systems with weakly hard QoS-constraint. The weakly hard QoS-constraint is modeled with (m, k)-constraint, which requires that at least m out of any k consecutive jobs of a task meet their deadlines. We first propose a technique that can balance the static and dynamic energy consumption for real-time jobs with better speed determination than the classical strategies during their feasible intervals. Then based on it, we propose an adaptive fixed-priority scheduling scheme to reduce the energy consumption for the system while preserving its reliability. Through extensive simulations, our experiment results demonstrate that the proposed techniques can significantly outperform the previous research in energy performance while satisfying the weakly hard QoS-constraint under the reliability requirement.     

A non-preemptive scheduling algorithm for soft real-time systems

Real-time systems are often designed using preemptive scheduling and worst-case execution time estimates to guarantee the execution of high priority tasks. There is, however, an interest in exploring non-preemptive scheduling models for real-time systems, particularly for soft real-time multimedia applications. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm that uses multiple scheduling strategies for efficient non-preemptive scheduling of tasks. Our goal is to improve the success ratio of the well-known Earliest Deadline First (EDF) approach when the load on the system is very high and to improve the overall performance in both underloaded and overloaded conditions. Our approach, known as group-EDF (gEDF) is based on dynamic grouping of tasks with deadlines that are very close to each other, and using Shortest Job First (SJF) technique to schedule tasks within the group. We will present results comparing gEDF with other real-time algorithms including, EDF, Best-effort, and Guarantee, by using randomly generated tasks with varying execution times, release times, deadlines and tolerance to missing deadlines, under varying workloads. We believe that grouping tasks dynamically with similar deadlines and utilizing a secondary criteria, such as minimizing the total execution time (or other metrics such as power or resource availability) for scheduling tasks within a group, can lead to new and more efficient real-time scheduling algorithms.     

Online And Offline Scheduling Schemes to Maximize the Weighted Delivered Video Packets Towards Maritime Cpss

In this paper, the online and offline scheduling schemes towards maritime Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs), to transmit video packets generating from the interior of vessel. During the sailing from the origin port to destination port, the video packets could be delivered via the infostations shoreside. The video packets have their respective release times, deadlines, weights and processing time. The video packets only could be successfully transmitted before their deadlines. A mathematic job-machine problem is mapped. Facing distinguished challenges with unique characteristics imposed in maritime scenario, we focus on the heterogeneous networking and resource optimal scheduling technology to provide valuable insights on the data transmission scheduling via this system. We aim to maximize the weight of delivered packets totally, three algorithms, an offline algorithm, an online ADMISSION Algorithm with no bounded processing times, as well as Exponential-Capacity Algorithm with bounded processing times are developed. Moreover, we induct the approximation ratio and competitive ratios of the proposed algorithms respectively. Finally, we verify the performance of the potential solutions for resource scheduling through comparison simulation.     

Reliability-aware scheduling strategy for heterogeneous distributed computing systems

Heterogeneous computing systems are promising computing platforms, since single parallel architecture based systems may not be sufficient to exploit the available parallelism with the running applications. In some cases, heterogeneous distributed computing (HDC) systems can achieve higher performance with lower cost than single-machine supersystems. However, in HDC systems, processors and networks are not failure free and any kind of failure may be critical to the running applications. One way of dealing with such failures is to employ a reliable scheduling algorithm. Unfortunately, most existing scheduling algorithms for precedence constrained tasks in HDC systems do not adequately consider reliability requirements of inter-dependent tasks. In this paper, we design a reliability-driven scheduling architecture that can effectively measure system reliability, based on an optimal reliability communication path search algorithm, and then we introduce reliability priority rank (RRank) to estimate the task’s priority by considering reliability overheads. Furthermore, based on directed acyclic graph (DAG) we propose a reliability-aware scheduling algorithm for precedence constrained tasks, which can achieve high quality of reliability for applications. The comparison studies, based on both randomly generated graphs and the graphs of some real applications, show that our scheduling algorithm outperforms the existing scheduling algorithms in terms of makespan, scheduling length ratio, and reliability. At the same time, the improvement gained by our algorithm increases as the data communication among tasks increases.     

SEED: solar energy‐aware efficient scheduling for data centers

It is well known that data centers are consuming a large amount of energy that incurs significant financial and environmental costs. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in utilizing green energy for data centers, where green energy sources include solar and wind. This paper studies the crucial problem of maximizing the utilization of green energy through scheduling complex jobs in data centers in order to reduce the use of traditional brown energy. However, it is highly challenging for data centers to make use of green energy. First, the availability of typical green energy is variable to dynamic changes of natural environments, for example, weather. Second, although predictions can be made for the future availability of green energy, it is inevitable that such predictions have errors. Third, jobs are associated with strict deadlines, and it is required that jobs are completed before their deadlines. Finally, because the reliability in a data center relies upon temperature, the awareness of temperature should be taken into account while maximizing the green energy. In this paper, we consider online scheduling of jobs whose arrivals to the data center system dynamically. In addition, we explicitly take the power consumption of switches into account when scheduling jobs onto computing nodes. Two solar energy‐aware algorithms called SEEDMin and SEEDMax have been proposed. Then, we extend SEED to RSEED with the awareness of reliability. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms, comprehensive simulations have been conducted, and the proposed algorithms are compared with other state‐of‐art algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that both SEEDMin and SEEDMax can significantly increase the utilization of solar energy without violating job deadlines and overall energy budget. The amount of solar energy utilized by SEEDMin and SEEDMax is 33.4%and35.3% larger than that of two traditional scheduling algorithms, MinMin and MinMax, respectively. Also, it can be seen that RSEED greatly improves the reliability by decreasing the temperature. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High performance real-time scheduling of multiple mixed-criticality functions in heterogeneous distributed embedded systems

The architectures of high-end embedded system have evolved into heterogeneous distributed integrated architectures. The scheduling of multiple distributed mixed-criticality functions in heterogeneous distributed embedded systems is a considerable challenge because of the different requirements of systems and functions. Overall scheduling length (i.e., makespan) is the main concern in system performance, whereas deadlines represent the major timing constraints of functions. Most algorithms use the fairness policies to reduce the makespan in heterogeneous distributed systems. However, these fairness policies cannot meet the deadlines of most functions. Each function has different criticality levels (e.g., severity), and missing the deadlines of certain high-criticality functions may cause fatal injuries to people under this situation. This study first constructs related models for heterogeneous distributed embedded systems. Thereafter, the criticality certification, scheduling framework, and fairness of multiple heterogeneous earliest finish time (F_MHEFT) algorithm for heterogeneous distributed embedded systems are presented. Finally, this study proposes a novel algorithm called the deadline-span of multiple heterogeneous earliest finish time (D_MHEFT), which is a scheduling algorithm for multiple mixed-criticality functions. The F_MHEFT algorithm aims at improving the performance of systems, while the D_MHEFT algorithm tries to meet the deadlines of more high-criticality functions by sacrificing a certain performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the D_MHEFT algorithm can significantly reduce the deadline miss ratio (DMR) and keep satisfactory performance over existing methods.     

有预算和截止期约束的网格作业调度算法

在商业网格计算环境中,作业有预算和截止期限制。如何向消费者提供有质量保障的服务,同时考虑服务提供者的利益,是一个关键问题。现有的作业调度算法只从消费者的角度出发对作业完成的时间和成本进行优化。同时从消费者和服务者的角度,利用作业的属性定义了作业的价值密度,在此基础上提出了高价值密度优先的网格作业调度算法HVDF。仿真结果表明,HVDF算法在实现价值率和按时完成作业数两个性能指标上优于现有算法。     

基于异构分布式系统的实时容错调度算法

目前文献中研究的实时容错调度算法都是基于同构分布式系统，系统中的所有处理机完全相同。该文首先建立了一个基于异构分布式系统实时容错调度模型，异构分布式系统中的各个处理机均不相同。基于该异构分布式系统模型，该文引入了可靠性代价（reliability cost）概念，并提出两种静态实时容错调度算法（RTFTNO和RTFTRC）用于调度周期性实时容错任务。算法RTFTRC在调度任务时，尽量使系统的可靠性代价最小；而算法RTFTNO在调度实时任务时，没有考虑系统的可靠性代价。该文详细讨论了两种调度算法的性能。性能模拟实验分别比较了两个算法的可靠性代价，超时比率和可调度性；并研究了任务的计算时间与可靠性代价的关系以及调度长度阈值与最小处理机个数的关系。实验结果表明，算法RTFTRC的性能优于算法RTFTNO。     

Scheduling parallel Kalman filters with quantized deadlines

In this paper we explore the problem of scheduling parallel processes of Kalman filters to meet individual estimation error requirements. It is assumed that at each time-step measurements of only one process are received. We define real-time deadlines of transmissions and convert the problem into arranging sequence of tasks with corresponding deadlines. To reduce computations, cycles of transmissions are calculated and virtual processes are introduced into scheduling. A sliding window method is then designed to adjust the processes against real-time disturbances in applications. Compared with algorithms proposed in Lin and Wang (2013), the proposed algorithm is able to schedule a feasible sequence adaptively within a short scheduling window and requires little computation.