Deterministic Batch Scheduling without Static Partitioning

Abstract

The Irix 6.5 scheduling system provides intrinsic support for batch processing, including support for guaranteed access to resources and policy-based static scheduling. Long range scheduling decisions are made by Miser, a user level daemon, which reserves the resources needed by a batch job to complete its tasks. Short-term decisions are made by the kernel in accordance with the reservations established by Miser. Unlike many batch systems, the processes in a batch job remain in the system from the time originally scheduled until the job completes. This gives the system considerable flexibility in choosing jobs to use idle resources. Unreserved or reserved but unused resources are available to either interactive jobs or batch jobs that haven't yet been scheduled. The system thus gains the advantages of static partitioning and static scheduling, without their inherent costs.