Experiences with load distribution on top of the mach microkernel

The paper describes our experiences in the design, implementation and use of load distribution on top of Mach. As a first step towards load distribution, we provided task migration which is our base mechanism for distributed scheduling. We compared task migration with initial placement. In order to make more accurate scheduling decisions, we instrumented Mach to account for network IPC and network paging. Processing is still the prevailing factor, but we also consider information on VM and IPC. We have conducted experiments with well-known distributed scheduling strategies in order to prove our assumptions. We are primarily interested in microkernel aspects of load distribution. We report on the lessons learned while dealing with the Mach interface and on task migration relationship to process migration and the file system.

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