Gang Scheduling for the IBM SP-2 Workstation Cluster

Distributed clusters of workstations interconnected via standard or proprietary packet switching networks have emerged as cost effective alternatives to special purpose parallel computers. These clusters keep up with the progress made in the workstation market by reusing commodity hardware (e.g. processors) and software (e.g. compilers, operating systems etc.). Effective resource managemen t and scheduling is essential for achieving high utilization in such clusters. Nevertheless, there is no one single scheduling strategy that satisfied all the requirements (e.g. priority scheduling, time-sharing, throughput, response time, etc.) of different sites. Gang scheduling is a mixed scheduling scheme for distributed systems that combine