Multiprogramming on multiprocessors

Many solutions have been proposed to the problem of multiprogramming a multiprocessor. However, each has limited applicability or fails to address an important source of overhead. In addition, there has been little experimental comparison of the various solutions in the presence of applications with varying degrees of parallelism and synchronization. The authors explore the tradeoffs between three different approaches to multiprogramming a multiprocessor: time-slicing, coscheduling, and dynamic hardware partitions. They implemented applications that vary in the degree of parallelism, and the frequency and type of synchronization. They show that in most cases coscheduling is preferable to time-slicing. They also show that although there are cases where coscheduling is beneficial, dynamic hardware partitions do no worse, and will often do better. They conclude that under most circumstances, hardware partitioning is the best strategy for multiprogramming a multiprocessor, no matter how much parallelism applications employ or how frequently synchronization occurs.<<ETX>>