Informing Algorithms for Efficient Scheduling of Synchronizing Threads on Multiprogrammed SMPs

We present novel algorithms for efficient scheduling of synchronizing threads on multiprogrammed SMPs. The algorithms are based on intra-application priority control of synchronizing threads. We refer to such algorithms with the term "informing algorithms". Prerequisite for informing algorithms is the use of an efficient communication medium between the user- and kernel-level and the existence of in-kernel mechanisms that allow the applications to cooperate with the OS scheduler. The applications are given the opportunity to influence, in a non-intrusive manner, the scheduling decisions concerning their threads. We compare the performance of our informing algorithms with the performance of corresponding scheduler-oblivious algorithms under multiprogramming. We experimented on a small-scale, Intel x86-based SMP, running Linux, using both microbenchmarks and applications from the Splash-2 benchmark suite. The results substantiate the superiority of our approach and indicate that the philosophy of informing algorithms may be applicable in a wide range of algorithms and architectures.