The design and implementation of the KOALA co-allocating grid scheduler

Abstract

In multicluster systems, and more generally, in grids, jobs may require co-allocation, i.e., the simultaneous allocation of resources such as processors and input files in multiple clusters. While such jobs may have reduced runtimes because they have access to more resources, waiting for processors in multiple clusters and for the input files to become available in the right locations, may introduce inefficiencies. In this paper we present the design of KOALA, a prototype for processor and data co-allocation that tries to minimize these inefficiencies through the use of its Close-to-Files placement policy and its Incremental Claiming Policy. The latter policy tries to solve the problem of a lack of support for reservation by local resource managers. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.