Optimal Load Balancing in a Beowulf Cluster

• Main Author: Adams, Daniel Alan
• Other Authors: David Finkel, Advisor
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital WPI 2005
• Subjects: beowulf; load sharing; load balancing; Beowulf clusters (Computer systems); Electronic data processing; Distributed processing; Load sharing
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/etd-theses/629; https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=etd-theses

PANTS (PANTS Application Node Transparency System) is a suite of programs designed to add transparent load balancing to a Beowulf cluster so that processes are transfered among the nodes of the cluster to improve performance. PANTS provides the option of using one of several different load balancing policies, each having a different approach. This paper studies the scalability and performance of these policies on large clusters and under various workloads. We measure the performance of our policies on our current cluster, and use that performance data to build simulations to test the performance of the policies in larger clusters and under differing workloads. Two policies, one deterministic and one non-deterministic, are presented which offer optimal steady-state performance. We also present best practices and discuss the major challenges of load balancing policy design.