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Finding a suitable system scale to optimize program performance on software DSM systems

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Abstract

Recently, software distributed shared memory systems have successfully provided an easy user interface to parallel user applications on distributed systems. In order to prompt program performance, most of DSM systems usually were greedy to utilize all of available processors in a computer network to execute user programs. However, using more processors to execute programs cannot necessarily guarantee to obtain better program performance. The overhead of paralleling programs is increased by the addition in the number of processors used for program execution. If the performance gain from program parallel cannot compensate for the overhead, increasing the number of execution processors will result in performance degradation and resource waste. In this paper, we proposed a mechanism to dynamically find a suitable system scale to optimize performance for DSM applications according to run-time information. The experimental results show that the proposed mechanism can precisely predict the processor number that will result in the best performance and then effectively optimize the performance of the test applications by adapting system scale according to the predicted result.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, Ta-Hsueh Road, Tainan, Taiwan

    Yi-Chang Zhuang, Jyh-Biau Chang & Ce-Kuen Shieh

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, No. 415, Chien Kung Road, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

    Tyng-Yeu Liang

  3. Department of Computer Science, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, B2G, 2W5, Canada

    Laurence Tianruo Yang

Authors
  1. Yi-Chang Zhuang
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  2. Jyh-Biau Chang
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  3. Tyng-Yeu Liang
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  4. Ce-Kuen Shieh
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  5. Laurence Tianruo Yang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laurence Tianruo Yang.

Additional information

Yi-Chang Zhuang received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from National Cheng Kung University in 1995, 1997, and 2004. He is currently working as an engineer at Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan. His research interests include object-based storage, file systems, distributed systems, and grid computing.

Jyh-Biau Chang is currently an assistant professor at the Information Management Department of Leader University in Taiwan. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Electrical Engineering Department of National Cheng Kung University in 1994, 1996, and 2005. His research interest is focused on cluster and grid computing, parallel and distributed system, and operating system.

Tyng-Yeu Liang is currently an assistant professor who teaches and studies at Department of Electrical Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences in Taiwan. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from National Cheng Kung University in 1992, 1994, and 2000. His study is interested in cluster and grid computing, image processing and multimedia.

Ce-Kuen Shieh currently is a professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. He is also the chief of computation center at National Cheng Kung University. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Cheng Kung University in 1988. He was the chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department of National Cheng Kung University from 2002 to 2005. His research interest is focused on computer network, and parallel and distributed system.

Laurence T. Yang is a professor at the Department of Computer Science, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada. His research includes high performance computing and networking, embedded systems, ubiquitous/pervasive computing and intelligence, and autonomic and trusted computing.

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Zhuang, YC., Chang, JB., Liang, TY. et al. Finding a suitable system scale to optimize program performance on software DSM systems. Cluster Comput 9, 223–236 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-006-9738-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-006-9738-3

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