Network Scheduling for Computational Grid Environments

Abstract

The problem of data movement is central to distributed computing paradigms like the Grid. While often overlooked, the time to stage data and binaries can be a significant contributor to the wall-clock program execution time in current Grid environments.

This paper describes a simple scheduler for network data movement in Grid systems that can adaptively determine data distribution schedules at runtime on the basis of Network Weather Service (NWS) performance predictions. These schedules take the form of spanning trees. The distribution mechanism is an enhancement to the Logistical Session Layer (LSL), a system for optimizing data transfers using logistics.