VSched: Mixing Batch And Interactive Virtual Machines Using Periodic Real-time Scheduling

We are developing Virtuoso, a system for distributed computing using virtual machines (VMs). Virtuoso must be able to mix batch and interactive VMs on the same physical hardware, while satisfying constraints on responsiveness and compute rates for each workload. VSched is the component of Virtuoso that provides this capability. VSched is an entirely user-level tool that interacts with the stock Linux kernel running below any type-II virtual machine monitor to schedule all VMs (indeed, any process) using a periodic real-time schedull. This abstraction allows compute rate and responsiveness constraints to be straightforwardly described using a period and a slice within the period, and it allows for fast and simple admission control. This paper makes the case for periodic real-time scheduling for VM-based computing environments, and then describes and evaluates VSched. It also applies VSched to scheduling parallel workloads, showing that it can help a BSP application maintain a fixed st...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: SC
• Authors: Bin Lin, Peter A. Dinda
• Keywords: Applied Computing, Compute Rate, National Science Foundation, SC 2005, Virtual Machine