An Adaptive Scheduler for Grids

The recent development of telecommunication infra-structures such as the world-wide networks, interconnecting millions of computers spread all over the world, has made possible the coordinated use of a large amount of heterogeneous, weakly connected computational resources. This new area, known as Grid computing, is currently the focus of several research activities and projects. However, as in every new domain of research, in this one there are many unsolved questions, in particular those related to the management of the processing load inside the system. In this work, the problem of balancing processing loads on a Grid is approached by the introduction of the Generational Scheduling with Task Replication (GSTR) algorithm. A comprehensive set of simulations and tests is carried out in order to validate the proposed solution. A methodology for calculating and analyzing speed-up and efficiency ratios on heterogeneous groups of computers is also shown.