Satin: Simple and Efficient Java-based Grid Programming

Abstract

Grid programming environments need to be both portable and efficient to exploit the computational power of dynamically available resources. In previous work, we have presented the divide-and-conquer based Satin model for parallel computing on clustered wide-area systems. In this paper, we present the Satin implementation on top of our new Ibis platform which combines Java's write once, run everywhere with efficient communication between JVMs. We evaluate Satin/Ibis on the testbed of the EU-funded GridLab project, showing that Satin's load-balancing algorithm automatically adapts both to heterogeneous processor speeds and varying network performance, resulting in efficient utilization of the computing resources. Our results show that when the wide-area links suffer from congestion, Satin's load-balancing algorithm can still achieve around 80% efficiency, while an algorithm that is not grid aware drops to 26% or less.