This book presents task-scheduling techniques for emerging complex parallel architectures including heterogeneous multi-core architectures, warehouse-scale datacenters, and distributed big data processing systems. The demand for high computational capacity has led to the growing popularity of multicore processors, which have become the mainstream in both the research and real-world settings. Yet to date, there is no book exploring the current task-scheduling techniques for the emerging complex parallel architectures. Addressing this gap, the book discusses state-of-the-art task-scheduling techniques that are optimized for different architectures, and which can be directly applied in real parallel systems. Further, the book provides an overview of the latest advances in task-scheduling policies in parallel architectures, and will help readers understand and overcome current and emerging issues in this field.

Overview and Goals This book is dedicated to scheduling for parallel processing. Presenting a research ?eld as broad as this one poses considerable dif?culties. Scheduling for parallel computing is an interdisciplinary subject joining many ?elds of science and te- nology. Thus, to understand the scheduling problems and the methods of solving them it is necessary to know the limitations in related areas. Another dif?culty is that the subject of scheduling parallel computations is immense. Even simple search in bibliographical databases reveals thousands of publications on this topic. The - versity in understanding scheduling problems is so great that it seems impossible to juxtapose them in one scheduling taxonomy. Therefore, most of the papers on scheduling for parallel processing refer to one scheduling problem resulting from one way of perceiving the reality. Only a few publications attempt to arrange this ?eld of knowledge systematically. In this book we will follow two guidelines. One guideline is a distinction - tween scheduling models which comprise a set of scheduling problems solved by dedicated algorithms. Thus, the aim of this book is to present scheduling models for parallel processing, problems de?ned on the grounds of certain scheduling models, and algorithms solving the scheduling problems. Most of the scheduling problems are combinatorial in nature. Therefore, the second guideline is the methodology of computational complexity theory. Inthisbookwepresentfourexamplesofschedulingmodels. Wewillgodeepinto the models, problems, and algorithms so that after acquiring some understanding of them we will attempt to draw conclusions on their mutual relationships.

This book constitutes the revised papers of the 14th International Workshop on Job Scheduling Strategies for Parallel Processing, JSSPP 2009, which was held in Rome, Italy, in May 2009. The 15 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The papers cover all current issues of job scheduling strategies for parallel processing; this year the conference had an increasing trend towards heterogeneous and multi-core architectures.

Innovations in hardware architecture, like hyper-threading or multicore processors, mean that parallel computing resources are available for inexpensive desktop computers. In only a few years, many standard software products will be based on concepts of parallel programming implemented on such hardware, and the range of applications will be much broader than that of scientific computing, up to now the main application area for parallel computing. Rauber and Rünger take up these recent developments in processor architecture by giving detailed descriptions of parallel programming techniques that are necessary for developing efficient programs for multicore processors as well as for parallel cluster systems and supercomputers. Their book is structured in three main parts, covering all areas of parallel computing: the architecture of parallel systems, parallel programming models and environments, and the implementation of efficient application algorithms. The emphasis lies on parallel programming techniques needed for different architectures. For this second edition, all chapters have been carefully revised. The chapter on architecture of parallel systems has been updated considerably, with a greater emphasis on the architecture of multicore systems and adding new material on the latest developments in computer architecture. Lastly, a completely new chapter on general-purpose GPUs and the corresponding programming techniques has been added. The main goal of the book is to present parallel programming techniques that can be used in many situations for a broad range of application areas and which enable the reader to develop correct and efficient parallel programs. Many examples and exercises are provided to show how to apply the techniques. The book can be used as both a textbook for students and a reference book for professionals. The material presented has been used for courses in parallel programming at different universities for many years.

Multicore processors are replacing most of the single core processors nowadays. Current trends show that there will be increasing numbers of cores on a single chip in the coming future. However, programming multicore processors remains bug prone and less productive. Thus, making use of a runtime to schedule tasks on multicore processor hides most of the complexities of parallel programming to improve productivity. QUARK is one of the runtimes available for the multicore processors. This work looks at identifying and solving performance bottlenecks for QUARK on the shared memory architecture. The problem of finding bottlenecks is divided into two parts, low level details and high level details. Low level details deal with issues like length of the critical section and locking mechanisms. High level details involve use of a suitable scheduling algorithm and better load balancing. We discuss the possible solutions of the bottlenecks and its impact on the overall performance.

Today all computers, from tablet/desktop computers to super computers, work in parallel. A basic knowledge of the architecture of parallel computers and how to program them, is thus, essential for students of computer science and IT professionals. In its second edition, the book retains the lucidity of the first edition and has added new material to reflect the advances in parallel computers. It is designed as text for the final year undergraduate students of computer science and engineering and information technology. It describes the principles of designing parallel computers and how to program them. This second edition, while retaining the general structure of the earlier book, has added two new chapters, ‘Core Level Parallel Processing’ and ‘Grid and Cloud Computing’ based on the emergence of parallel computers on a single silicon chip popularly known as multicore processors and the rapid developments in Cloud Computing. All chapters have been revised and some chapters are re-written to reflect the emergence of multicore processors and the use of MapReduce in processing vast amounts of data. The new edition begins with an introduction to how to solve problems in parallel and describes how parallelism is used in improving the performance of computers. The topics discussed include instruction level parallel processing, architecture of parallel computers, multicore processors, grid and cloud computing, parallel algorithms, parallel programming, compiler transformations, operating systems for parallel computers, and performance evaluation of parallel computers.

The saturation of design complexity and clock frequencies for single-core processors has resulted in the emergence of multicore architectures as an alternative design paradigm. Nowadays, multicore/multithreaded computing systems are not only a de-facto standard for high-end applications, they are also gaining popularity in the field of embedded computing. The start of the multicore era has altered the concepts relating to almost all of the areas of computer architecture design, including core design, memory management, thread scheduling, application support, inter-processor communication, debugging, and power management. This book gives readers a holistic overview of the field and guides them to further avenues of research by covering the state of the art in this area. It includes contributions from industry as well as academia.