A Tabu Search for the Heterogeneous DAG Scheduling Problem

Scheduling parallel applications on heterogeneous processors/architectures with different computational speed is a difficult problem. Here, a tabu search metaheuristic is developed to improve the schedule generated by list scheduling. Three neighbourhoods variants are proposed and examined, including a novel neighbourhood that takes the shape of the task graph into account. The effectiveness is evaluated based on a set of modified random benchmark graphs, including task graphs of real-world applications. Factors affecting algorithm performance are also examined. We have found that the variants proposed were able to reduce the schedule length produced by HEFT up to an average of 30% and up to on average 20% for the standard graphs. The results also show that using information about the shape of the task graph is a viable strategy.

[1]  Fred W. Glover,et al.  Tabu Search - Part I , 1989, INFORMS J. Comput..

[2]  Fred W. Glover,et al.  A user's guide to tabu search , 1993, Ann. Oper. Res..

[3]  Fred Glover,et al.  Tabu Search - Part II , 1989, INFORMS J. Comput..

[4]  Miroslaw Malek,et al.  Serial and parallel simulated annealing and tabu search algorithms for the traveling salesman problem , 1990 .

[5]  E. Nowicki,et al.  A Fast Taboo Search Algorithm for the Job Shop Problem , 1996 .

[6]  Richard P. Brent,et al.  An improved Monte Carlo factorization algorithm , 1980 .

[7]  Salim Hariri,et al.  Performance-Effective and Low-Complexity Task Scheduling for Heterogeneous Computing , 2002, IEEE Trans. Parallel Distributed Syst..

[8]  Edward A. Lee,et al.  A Compile-Time Scheduling Heuristic for Interconnection-Constrained Heterogeneous Processor Architectures , 1993, IEEE Trans. Parallel Distributed Syst..

[9]  Nawwaf N. Kharma,et al.  GATS 1.0: a novel GA-based scheduling algorithm for task scheduling on heterogeneous processor nets , 2005, GECCO '05.

[10]  Ali R. Hurson,et al.  Scheduling and Load Balancing in Parallel and Distributed Systems , 1995 .

[11]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  A Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem , 1991 .

[12]  Sang Cheol Kim,et al.  Push-pull: guided search DAG scheduling for heterogeneous clusters , 2005, 2005 International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP'05).

[13]  Ishfaq Ahmad,et al.  Benchmarking the task graph scheduling algorithms , 1998, Proceedings of the First Merged International Parallel Processing Symposium and Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing.