A multi-level load balancing scheme for OR-parallel exhaustive search programs on the multi-PSI

  • Authors:

  • M. Furuichi;K. Taki;N. Ichiyoshi

  • Affiliations:

  • Information Systems and Electronics Development Lab., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, 5-l-l Ofuna, Kamakura 247, JAPAN;Institute for New Generation Computer Technology, 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, JAPAN;Institute for New Generation Computer Technology, 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, JAPAN

  • Venue:
  • PPOPP '90 Proceedings of the second ACM SIGPLAN symposium on Principles & practice of parallel programming
  • Year:
  • 1990

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Abstract

Good load balancing is the key to deriving maximal performance from multiprocessors. Several successful dynamic load balancing techniques on tightly-coupled multiprocessors have been developed. However, load balancing is more difficult on loosely-coupled multiprocessors because inter-processor communication overheads cost more. Dynamic load balancing techniques have been employed in a few programs on loosely-coupled multiprocessors, but they are tightly built into the particular programs and not much attention is paid to scalability. We have developed a dynamic load balancing scheme which is applicable to OR-parallel programs in general. Processors are grouped, and work loads of groups and processors are balanced hierarchically. Moreover, it is scalable to any number of processors because of this multi-level hierarchical structure. The scheme is tested for the all-solution exhaustive search Pentomino program on the mesh-connected loosely-coupled multiprocessor Multi-PSI, and speedups of 28.4 times with 32 processors and 50 times with 64 processors have been attained.