Multi-round Master-Worker Computing: a Repeated Game Approach

We consider a computing system where a master processor assigns tasks for execution to worker processors through the Internet. We model the workers decision of whether to comply (compute the task) or not (return a bogus result to save the computation cost) as a mixed extension of a strategic game among workers. That is, we assume that workers are rational in a game-theoretic sense, and that they randomize their strategic choice. Workers are assigned multiple tasks in subsequent rounds. We model the system as an infinitely repeated game of the mixed extension of the strategic game. In each round, the master decides stochastically whether to accept the answer of the majority or verify the answers received, at some cost. Incentives and/or penalties are applied to workers accordingly. Under the above framework, we study the conditions in which the master can reliably obtain tasks results, exploiting that the repeated games model captures the effect of long-term interaction. That is, workers take into account that their behavior in one computation will have an effect on the behavior of other workers in the future. Indeed, should a worker be found to deviate from some agreed strategic choice, the remaining workers would change their own strategy to penalize the deviator. Hence, being rational, workers do not deviate. We identify analytically the parameter conditions to induce a desired worker behavior, and we evaluate experi- mentally the mechanisms derived from such conditions. We also compare the performance of our mechanisms with a previously known multi-round mechanism based on reinforcement learning.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Hybrid ant colony system algorithm for static and dynamic job scheduling in grid computing

Grid computing is a distributed system with heterogeneous infrastructures. Resource management system (RMS) is one of the most important components which has great influence on the grid computing performance. The main part of RMS is the scheduler algorithm which has the responsibility to map submitted tasks to available resources. The complexity of scheduling problem is considered as a nondeterministic polynomial complete (NP-complete) problem and therefore, an intelligent algorithm is required to achieve better scheduling solution. One of the prominent intelligent algorithms is ant colony system (ACS) which is implemented widely to solve various types of scheduling problems. However, ACS suffers from stagnation problem in medium and large size grid computing system. ACS is based on exploitation and exploration mechanisms where the exploitation is sufficient but the exploration has a deficiency. The exploration in ACS is based on a random approach without any strategy. This study proposed four hybrid algorithms between ACS, Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Tabu Search (TS) algorithms to enhance the ACS performance. The algorithms are ACS(GA), ACS+GA, ACS(TS), and ACS+TS. These proposed hybrid algorithms will enhance ACS in terms of exploration mechanism and solution refinement by implementing low and high levels hybridization of ACS, GA, and TS algorithms. The proposed algorithms were evaluated against twelve metaheuristic algorithms in static (expected time to compute model) and dynamic (distribution pattern) grid computing environments. A simulator called ExSim was developed to mimic the static and dynamic nature of the grid computing. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms outperform ACS in terms of best makespan values. Performance of ACS(GA), ACS+GA, ACS(TS), and ACS+TS are better than ACS by 0.35%, 2.03%, 4.65% and 6.99% respectively for static environment. For dynamic environment, performance of ACS(GA), ACS+GA, ACS+TS, and ACS(TS) are better than ACS by 0.01%, 0.56%, 1.16%, and 1.26% respectively. The proposed algorithms can be used to schedule tasks in grid computing with better performance in terms of makespan

Advances in Grid Computing

This book approaches the grid computing with a perspective on the latest achievements in the field, providing an insight into the current research trends and advances, and presenting a large range of innovative research papers. The topics covered in this book include resource and data management, grid architectures and development, and grid-enabled applications. New ideas employing heuristic methods from swarm intelligence or genetic algorithm and quantum encryption are considered in order to explain two main aspects of grid computing: resource management and data management. The book addresses also some aspects of grid computing that regard architecture and development, and includes a diverse range of applications for grid computing, including possible human grid computing system, simulation of the fusion reaction, ubiquitous healthcare service provisioning and complex water systems

The Seamless Peer and Cloud Evolution Framework

Evolutionary algorithms are increasingly being applied to problems that are too computationally expensive to run on a single personal computer due to costly fitness function evaluations and/or large numbers of fitness evaluations. Here, we introduce the Seamless Peer And Cloud Evolution (SPACE) framework, which leverages bleeding edge web technologies to allow the computational resources necessary for running large scale evolutionary experiments to be made available to amateur and professional researchers alike, in a scalable and cost-effective manner, directly from their web browsers. The SPACE framework accomplishes this by distributing fitness evaluations across a heterogeneous pool of cloud compute nodes and peer computers. As a proof of concept, this framework has been attached to the RoboGen open-source platform for the co-evolution of robot bodies and brains, but importantly the framework has been built in a modular fashion such that it can be easily coupled with other evolutionary computation systems

Trusted community : a novel multiagent organisation for open distributed systems

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Non-dominated sorting Harris’s hawk multi-objective optimizer based on reference point approach

A non-dominated sorting Harris’s hawk multi- objective optimizer (NDSHHMO) algorithm is presented in this paper. The algorithm is able to improve the population diversity, convergence of non-dominated solutions toward the Pareto front, and prevent the population from trapping into local optimal. This was achieved by integrating fast non-dominated sorting with the original Harris’s hawk multi-objective optimizer (HHMO). Non-dominated sorting divides the objective space into levels based on fitness values and then selects non-dominated solutions to produce the next generation of hawks. A set of well-known multi-objective optimization problems has been used to evaluate the performance of the proposed NDSHHMO algorithm. The results of the NDSHHMO algorithm were verified against the results of an HHMO algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed NDSHHMO algorithm in terms of enhancing the ability of convergence toward the Pareto front and significantly improve the search ability of the HHMO