A kernel integrated task migration infrastructure for clusters of workstations

Abstract

The processing and the communication capacities of interconnected workstations are currently not prohibitive for executing parallel and distributed applications. The programs can be executed on remote workstations yet deliver the results locally or where they are required, provided the overhead is tolerable. This capability opens up a whole new era. With a task (or process) migration facility, it would be possible to utilize abundant processing power and realize fail-proof execution of applications. This paper presents a task migration infrastructure (TMI), which allows tasks to dynamically migrate amongst the workstations. It incorporates parallel and distributed applications. Contrary to other studies, TMI is partly integrated into the UNIX kernel in the form of enhancements (E-kernel) and it is based on a dedicated message passing communication interface. TMI is to serve as an infrastructure for higher level usage such as fault tolerance, load balancing, and resource utilization. The experimental results have acknowledged the feasibility of TMI, in particular for long running applications.