Benchmarking the task graph scheduling algorithms

Abstract

The problem of scheduling a weighted directed acyclic graph (DAG) to a set of homogeneous processors to minimize the completion time has been extensively studied. The NP-completeness of the problem has instigated researchers to propose a myriad of heuristic algorithms. While these algorithms are individually reported to be efficient, it is not clear how effective they are and how well they compare against each other. A comprehensive performance evaluation and comparison of these algorithms entails addressing a number of difficult issues. One of the issues is that a large number of scheduling algorithms are based upon radically different assumptions, making their comparison on a unified basis a rather intricate task. Another issue is that there is no standard set of benchmarks that can be used to evaluate and compare these algorithms. Furthermore, most algorithms are evaluated using small problem sizes, and it is not clear how their performance scales with the problem size. In this paper, we first provide a taxonomy for classifying various algorithms into different categories according to their assumptions and functionalities. We then propose a set of benchmarks which are of diverse structures without being biased towards a particular scheduling technique and still allow variations in important parameters. We have evaluated 15 scheduling algorithms, and compared them using the proposed benchmarks. Based upon the design philosophies and principles behind these algorithms, we interpret the results and discuss why some algorithms perform better than the others.