Loosely-coupled loop scheduling in computational grids

Loop distribution is one of the most useful techniques to reduce the execution time of parallel applications. Traditionally, loop scheduling algorithms are implemented based on parallel programming paradigms such as MPI. This approximation presents three main disadvantages when applied in a grid environment, namely: (i) all resources must be simultaneously allocated to begin execution of the application; (ii) it is necessary to restart the whole application when a resource fails; (iii) it is not possible to add new resources to a currently running application. To overcome these limitations, we propose a new approach to implement loop distribution schemes in computational Grids. This approach is implemented using the distributed resource management application API (DRMAA) standard and the GridWay meta-scheduling framework. The efficiency of this approach to solve the Mandelbrot set problem is analyzed in a Globus-based research testbed