Adversarial Task Allocation

The problem of allocating tasks to workers is of long standing fundamental importance. Examples of this include the classical problem of assigning computing tasks to nodes in a distributed computing environment, as well as the more recent problem of crowdsourcing where a broad array of tasks are slated to be completed by human workers. Extensive research into this problem generally addresses important issues such as uncertainty and, in crowdsourcing, incentives. However, the problem of adversarial tampering with the task allocation process has not received as much attention. We are concerned with a particular adversarial setting in task allocation where an attacker may target a specific worker in order to prevent the tasks assigned to this worker from being completed. We consider two attack models: one in which the adversary observes only the allocation policy (which may be randomized), and the second in which the attacker observes the actual allocation decision. For the case when all tasks are homogeneous, we provide polynomial-time algorithms for both settings. When tasks are heterogeneous, however, we show the adversarial allocation problem to be NP-Hard, and present algorithms for solving it when the defender is restricted to assign only a single worker per task. Our experiments show, surprisingly, that the difference between the two attack models is minimal: deterministic allocation can achieve nearly as much utility as randomized

Adversarial Task Assignment

The problem of assigning tasks to workers is of long-standing fundamental importance. Examples of this include the classical problem of assigning computing tasks to nodes in a distributed computing environment, assigning jobs to robots, and crowdsourcing. Extensive research into this problem generally addresses important issues such as uncertainty and incentives. However, the problem of adversarial tampering with the task assignment process has not received as much attention. We are concerned with a particular adversarial setting where an attacker may target a set of workers in order to prevent the tasks assigned to these workers from being completed. When all tasks are homogeneous, we provide an efficient algorithm for computing the optimal assignment. When tasks are heterogeneous, we show that the adversarial assignment problem is NP-Hard, and present an algorithm for solving it approximately. Our theoretical results are accompanied by extensive experiments showing the effectiveness of our algorithms.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1709.0035

Energy-Efficient Real-Time Scheduling for Two-Type Heterogeneous Multiprocessors

We propose three novel mathematical optimization formulations that solve the same two-type heterogeneous multiprocessor scheduling problem for a real-time taskset with hard constraints. Our formulations are based on a global scheduling scheme and a fluid model. The first formulation is a mixed-integer nonlinear program, since the scheduling problem is intuitively considered as an assignment problem. However, by changing the scheduling problem to first determine a task workload partition and then to find the execution order of all tasks, the computation time can be significantly reduced. Specifically, the workload partitioning problem can be formulated as a continuous nonlinear program for a system with continuous operating frequency, and as a continuous linear program for a practical system with a discrete speed level set. The task ordering problem can be solved by an algorithm with a complexity that is linear in the total number of tasks. The work is evaluated against existing global energy/feasibility optimal workload allocation formulations. The results illustrate that our algorithms are both feasibility optimal and energy optimal for both implicit and constrained deadline tasksets. Specifically, our algorithm can achieve up to 40% energy saving for some simulated tasksets with constrained deadlines. The benefit of our formulation compared with existing work is that our algorithms can solve a more general class of scheduling problems due to incorporating a scheduling dynamic model in the formulations and allowing for a time-varying speed profile. Moreover, our algorithms can be applied to both online and offline scheduling schemes

A Novel Hybrid Algorithm for Task Graph Scheduling

One of the important problems in multiprocessor systems is Task Graph Scheduling. Task Graph Scheduling is an NP-Hard problem. Both learning automata and genetic algorithms are search tools which are used for solving many NP-Hard problems. In this paper a new hybrid method based on Genetic Algorithm and Learning Automata is proposed. The proposed algorithm begins with an initial population of randomly generated chromosomes and after some stages, each chromosome maps to an automaton. Experimental results show that superiority of the proposed algorithm over the current approaches

Heterogeneous Coded Computation across Heterogeneous Workers

Coded distributed computing framework enables large-scale machine learning (ML) models to be trained efficiently in a distributed manner, while mitigating the straggler effect. In this work, we consider a multi-task assignment problem in a coded distributed computing system, where multiple masters, each with a different matrix multiplication task, assign computation tasks to workers with heterogeneous computing capabilities. Both dedicated and probabilistic worker assignment models are considered, with the objective of minimizing the average completion time of all computations. For dedicated worker assignment, greedy algorithms are proposed and the corresponding optimal load allocation is derived based on the Lagrange multiplier method. For probabilistic assignment, successive convex approximation method is used to solve the non-convex optimization problem. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms reduce the completion time by 80% over uncoded scheme, and 49% over an unbalanced coded scheme.Comment: Submitted for publicatio

Improving Robustness of Heterogeneous Serverless Computing Systems Via Probabilistic Task Pruning

Cloud-based serverless computing is an increasingly popular computing paradigm. In this paradigm, different services have diverse computing requirements that justify deploying an inconsistently Heterogeneous Computing (HC) system to efficiently process them. In an inconsistently HC system, each task needed for a given service, potentially exhibits different execution times on each type of machine. An ideal resource allocation system must be aware of such uncertainties in execution times and be robust against them, so that Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of users are met. This research aims to maximize the robustness of an HC system utilized to offer a serverless computing system, particularly when the system is oversubscribed. Our strategy to maximize robustness is to develop a task pruning mechanism that can be added to existing task-mapping heuristics without altering them. Pruning tasks with a low probability of meeting their deadlines improves the likelihood of other tasks meeting their deadlines, thereby increasing system robustness and overall QoS. To evaluate the impact of the pruning mechanism, we examine it on various configurations of heterogeneous and homogeneous computing systems. Evaluation results indicate a considerable improvement (up to 35%) in the system robustness.Comment: IPDPSW '1

Decentralized Computation Offloading and Resource Allocation in Heterogeneous Networks with Mobile Edge Computing

We consider a heterogeneous network with mobile edge computing, where a user can offload its computation to one among multiple servers. In particular, we minimize the system-wide computation overhead by jointly optimizing the individual computation decisions, transmit power of the users, and computation resource at the servers. The crux of the problem lies in the combinatorial nature of multi-user offloading decisions, the complexity of the optimization objective, and the existence of inter-cell interference. Then, we decompose the underlying problem into two subproblems: i) the offloading decision, which includes two phases of user association and subchannel assignment, and ii) joint resource allocation, which can be further decomposed into the problems of transmit power and computation resource allocation. To enable distributed computation offloading, we sequentially apply a many-to-one matching game for user association and a one-to-one matching game for subchannel assignment. Moreover, the transmit power of offloading users is found using a bisection method with approximate inter-cell interference, and the computation resources allocated to offloading users is achieved via the duality approach. The proposed algorithm is shown to converge and is stable. Finally, we provide simulations to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm as well as comparisons with the existing frameworks.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Journa

Energy-Aware Task Partitioning on Heterogeneous Multiprocessor Platforms

Efficient task partitioning plays a crucial role in achieving high performance at multiprocessor plat forms. This paper addresses the problem of energy-aware static partitioning of periodic real-time tasks on heterogeneous multiprocessor platforms. A Particle Swarm Optimization variant based on Min-min technique for task partitioning is proposed. The proposed approach aims to minimize the overall energy consumption, meanwhile avoid deadline violations. An energy-aware cost function is proposed to be considered in the proposed approach. Extensive simulations and comparisons are conducted in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. The achieved results demonstrate that the proposed partitioning scheme significantly surpasses previous approaches in terms of both number of iterations and energy savings.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Multiple Workflows Scheduling in Multi-tenant Distributed Systems: A Taxonomy and Future Directions

The workflow is a general notion representing the automated processes along with the flow of data. The automation ensures the processes being executed in the order. Therefore, this feature attracts users from various background to build the workflow. However, the computational requirements are enormous and investing for a dedicated infrastructure for these workflows is not always feasible. To cater to the broader needs, multi-tenant platforms for executing workflows were began to be built. In this paper, we identify the problems and challenges in the multiple workflows scheduling that adhere to the platforms. We present a detailed taxonomy from the existing solutions on scheduling and resource provisioning aspects followed by the survey of relevant works in this area. We open up the problems and challenges to shove up the research on multiple workflows scheduling in multi-tenant distributed systems.Comment: Several changes has been done based on reviewers' comments after first round review. This is a pre-print for paper (currently under second round review) submitted to ACM Computing Survey

MapReduce Scheduler: A 360-degree view

Undoubtedly, the MapReduce is the most powerful programming paradigm in distributed computing. The enhancement of the MapReduce is essential and it can lead the computing faster. Therefore, here are many scheduling algorithms to discuss based on their characteristics. Moreover, there are many shortcoming to discover in this field. In this article, we present the state-of-the-art scheduling algorithm to enhance the understanding of the algorithms. The algorithms are presented systematically such that there can be many future possibilities in scheduling algorithm through this article. In this paper, we provide in-depth insight on the MapReduce scheduling algorithm. In addition, we discuss various issues of MapReduce scheduler developed for large-scale computing as well as heterogeneous environment.Comment: Journal Articl