ATLS - A parallel loop scheduling scheme for dynamic environments

We here present ATLS, a self scheduling scheme designed for execution of parallel loops in dynamic environments of non-dedicated networked computers. Since grid and volunteer systems based on desktop computers are proving themselves as real and powerful alternatives for parallel computing, new scheduling schemes, better suited for these environments, are required. Our proposal, by tracking several performance change ratios at runtime, is able to properly adjust the load distribution using no prior information of the loop features nor the involved processors. The results obtained during the experiments performed to validate ATLS show that it is possible to improve former contributions of well-known parallel loop scheduling schemes in dynamic environments. The implementation of the scheduler has been done for the R language but, as it is exposed, it can easily be adapted to any other language and parallel loop based application.