The simulation of decentralized control: a hostless resource allocation model

In this article, an alternative approach to control for computing systems, with possible distributed, parallel, or multilprocess application, is proposed and evaluated through simulation. Functions normally handled by centralized controllers, schedulers, arbiters and priority schemes are accomplished through a decentral ized model of control. Resource allocation, one important control function, is resolved within a Challenge Ring (CR) in which individual computing tasks independently (or without a host, hence their interaction is called hostless) exercise algorithms to gain access to computing resources. Simulated system performance is monitored by analyzing individual task processing times, total system times, resource availability, resource utilization, and system efficiency. Our preliminary experimental results indicate that such decentralized (or hostless) models can be superior to some standard centralized (or hosted) versions. Moreover, tasks in CR networks that interact through cooperative strategies in some cases exhibit better performance. Our overall results encourage the further exploration of decentralized control models which could be useful in the continuing pursuit of alternative machine constructs (e.g. non-von Neumann architectures) and new distributed operational schemes (e.g. hostless network operating systems).