PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF LOAD BALANCING
ALGORITHMS IN A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING SYSTEM BY
MONTE CARLO SIMULATION
Dr. Ramanand Jha, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science , Arat Kilo, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box - 34 510 ,
Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA, Email: ramanand_jha@yahoo.com
Dr. Debasish Ghose, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560 02, INDIA
Email: dghose@aero.iisc.ernet.in
ABSTRACT
The objective of the work is to describe an experiment of
stable system consisting of many processors connected
by a communication network. This experiment requires
developing of a simulation program for a fairly large
Distributed Computing System where jobs arrive
randomly at various computers and demand random
service time. The performance and efficiency of the
system is measured in terms of response time, wait time,
percentage busy period, system response time, and
system wait time. A comparative study of the
performance of the various scheduling policies has been
examined.
1. INTRODUCTION
The confluence of low-cost microprocessors and high-
speed communication technologies has stimulated
considerable interest in Distributed Computing System
(DCS). It is characterized by several large and/or small
computers and workstations, located at geographically
distant points and connected via a communication
network backbone. These computers are more or less
autonomous in the sense that they have their own local
memory and peripherals. Since these computers are
autonomous, they process jobs submitted to them locally.
Quite often some computers in the DCS are overloaded
with jobs while others are free. This is a situation where
the DCS architecture helps in speeding up the processing
of jobs. The overloaded computers in the DCS transfer
jobs from their own local queues to those computers
which are under loaded. Once those jobs are processed at
the under loaded computers, they are sent back to the
computer where they originated.
The primary advantages of these systems are
high performance, availability, and extensibility at low
cost. To realize these benefits to its fullest advantage
various parameters has to be considered in detail. For
small computer systems, it is possible to obtain fairly
representative analytical expressions in closed form for
the overall performance of a DCS. In large DCS system
with different arrival and service rates for jobs either the
analytical techniques are very difficult to apply or the
result of analytical technique do not yield meaningful
results. For such cases one needs to perform extensive
simulation study.
“Computer Simulation” has started revolution in science
and technology over past three decades. It has become a
third branch complementary to the basic and applied
science. It has both the features theory & experiment and
it bridges the gap between them. Now, Computer
Simulation is an integral part of contemporary science.
What is simulation? Simulation is the process
of representing (mimicking) the dynamic behavior of a
real system as close as possible by the behavior of
another system through some model. The model is
implemented by the use of computation power of
computer. The purpose of simulation is usually to make
experimental measurements or predict behavior, thus
moving the laboratory into the computer environment.
Simulation thus provides a prototype system with which
to answer questions of a “what if?” nature, or to use for
teaching about the system being stimulated.
Load distribution for improving the overall
performance of a DCS has been extensively discussed in
the literature and many theoretical models and algorithms
have been proposed [1-11]. It has been shown that
performance improvement can be achieved by relocating
jobs in a DCS.
Two important components of a load
scheduling/sharing policy are the transfer policy, which
determines whether to process a job locally or remotely,
and the location policy, which determines to which
computer a job selected for transfer should be sent. Load
distribution improves performance by transferring jobs
from heavily loaded computers, where service is poor, to
lightly loaded computers, where the jobs can take
advantage of computing capacity that would otherwise
go unused.
Although load balancing does generally assist
in performance, if it is poorly incorporated into the
system it can also lead to deterioration of performance.
The chief causes responsible for deterioration in
performance is large algorithm overhead, Job thrashing
(needless movement of jobs from site to site), subnet
delay, and traffic intensity: The system traffic intensity
has been shown to strongly influence the performance of
load balancing algorithms [12].
2. THEORY OF QUEUES
In order to describe any queue-system one must provide
the following:
1. Arrival pattern: This covers both the average
rate of arrival of customers and the statistical
pattern of the arrivals. The most appropriate
arrival pattern for our system would be a
completely random arrival pattern. It is
described by a Poisson
 exp(− λt )(λt )
r i=n

2. distribution, P (r , t ) = whole is stable (i.e. (λi / µ i ) < n ). The mean

r! i =1
where λ is the mean arrival per unit of time response time and mean wail time increases without limit
(mean inter-arrival time between jobs is for both the unstable processing node under no loading
sharing, and the unstable system.
1 / λ ), r is the number of arrival in a period Conservation Law :For a given arrival and
t , and P(r , t ) is the probability of r arrival service time patterns, a particular weighted sum of
in time period t . It leads to probability of waiting times for all jobs is invariant to the scheduling
algorithm used [13]. This means that scheduling can only
arrival in time period t to be improve the response time of some users at the expense
(
1 − exp − λt . ) of other users.
3. Service mechanism: This covers the issues of
when service is available, how many customers 4. SYSTEM PARAMETERS AND NETWORKS
can be served at a time, and how long each
service takes. Usually this is specified by a The parameters of the system are shown in the Table-
statistical distribution of service-time. A great 1,2,3 and 4. In Table-1 all the nodes are stable and hence
mathematical simplification results if we can the system is also stable. In Table-2 Node-1 is
reasonably represent the cumulative intentionally made unstable to show the effectiveness of
distribution function of service-time by load balancing; the system as a whole is still kept
S (t ) = 1 − exp(− µt )
balanced. Again in Table-3 all the nodes are stable but in
where µ is the Table-4 Node-1 and Node-8 are made unstable while
mean service rate (mean service time is keeping the system stable.
1 / µ ). The queuing system is called stable
Table-1/2
if λ
< µ , critical if λ = µ and unstable if Node Arriva Service Sched Stability
λ>µ. Numb l Rate, Rate, uling of
4. Queue-discipline: This means the method by
er λ µ Period, Node
Job/s Job/s sec
which a customer is selected for service out of
those awaiting service. There are many way of 1 0.50 1.00/0.40 5 Stable/
selecting out of those awaiting services e.g., Unstable
FIFO (First In First Out), LIFO (Last In First 2 0.60 0.80 5 Stable
Out), RS (Random Selection), PS (Priority 3 0.20 0.50 5 Stable
Selection) etc. For our purpose FIFO is more
appropriate. Table-3/4
5. Queuing Statistics: In many stochastic Node Arrival Service Sched Stability
simulations the most commonly used factors to Numb Rate, Rate, uling of
describe queue behavior includes the average er λ µ Period, Node
response time, and average wait time. We Job/s sec
Job/s
define the average response time as a sum of
1 0.50 1.00/0.04 5 Stable/
total amount of time a process spends waiting
for resources and its servicing time and the Unstable
average wait time is defined as a total amount 2 0.60 0.80 5 Stable
of time a process spends waiting for resources. 3 0.20 0.50 5 Stable
4 0.30 0.70 5 Stable
3. SYSTEM MODEL 5 0.40 0.60 5 Stable
6 0.10 0.90 5 Stable
The queuing system is assumed to have queue of infinite 7 0.10 0.70 5 Stable
capacity buffer to store jobs that arrive at the nodes, the 8 0.30 0.90/0.20 5 Stable/
processor at a node is constantly available and busy as Unstable
long as there are jobs in the queue, all jobs remain in the
system of the queues until their service has been The difference between Table-1 and Table-2
completed and the arrival and service pattern both are occurs just at Node-1 where the Service Rate changes
Poisson processes. The imbalance in the load, caused by from 1.00 to 0.40 to make the node unstable. Similarly
the difference in the rates of arrivals and departures at the the difference between Table-3 and Table-4 occur just at
nodes, is the motivation for load balancing. Node-1 and 8 where the Service Rate changes from 1.00
We have considered two systems. The first to 0.40 and 0.90 to 0.02 respectively to make these two
system consists of completely connected network of nodes unstable.
three processors and another system is a hypercube in We have considered two network systems for our
three dimensions. We have investigated three different investigation:
methods of load sharing in these systems. 1) Completely Connected 3 Nodes System: It is a
Advantages of load sharing are best felt when, three nodes system and each node is directly
in the no load sharing case, some of the processors are connected to the remaining nodes.
2) Hypercube: Various cube-type multiprocessor
rendered unstable (i.e. µ i < λi ), but the system as a
topology address the scalability (it refers to the
ability of a given architecture to expand in
 order to support a large number of processors) Method_1: Queue length dependent load balancing
and cost issues by providing interconnections strategy where load is transferred to connected nodes to
whose complexity grows logarithmically with balance their queue length disparity. Method_2: Service
the increasing number of nodes. But hypercube rate dependent load balancing strategy where load is
is one of the most common architectures transferred to connected nodes to balance their queue
extensively considered in the literature. Each n
processor in a hypercube has is directly linked length disparity in proportion to µi / µi .
( )
to lg N other nodes in an N-node system, i =1

the maximum distance between any two nodes Method_3: Arrival rate dependent load balancing
( )
is lg N links. Hypercubes provide a good
strategy where load is transferred to connected nodes to
balance their queue length disparity in proportion
basis for scalable systems, since their n
complexity grows logarithmically with the to λi / λi .
number of nodes. We have considered i =1
Hypercube in 3-dimension (containing 8
nodes). 7. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
5. SYSTEM’S ALGORITHM a) Simulation in a Completely Connected Network
We run the simulation without load balancing with the
The algorithm for the simulation can be summarized in parameters of Table-1 and Table-2 and then again we
the following steps written in near C-language pseudo repeat the same simulation with load balancing.
code. At each node the following algorithm is performed:
The results using method-1are tabulated below.
// Initializations
Processor_Status = Idle ; Queue_Length = Empty ; S Input No Load Resp Wait Percen
Whether_Next_Job_Ready = No N Data de Bal onse Time tage
o. Table ance Time Busy
do Time
{ 1 1 1 I 1.41 0.40 42.87
If (Whether_Next_Job_Ready == No) 2 1 1 A 1.48 0.44 48.12
{ Creat_Next_Job() ;
3 1 2 I 3.52 2.21 64.01
Whether_Next_Job_Ready = Yes ;}
4 1 2 A 2.33 1.05 58.02
If(Whether_Arrival_Of_Next_Next_Job_Matures
== Yes) 5 1 3 I 3.54 1.40 42.21
{Add_To_Queue() ; 6 1 3 A 2.90 0.78 41.30
Whether_Next_Job_Ready = No} 7 1 Sys I 2.72 1.37
If( Processor_Status == Idle ) tem
{ 8 1 Sys A 2.01 0.68
If (Queue_Length == Empty) Do nothing tem
Else 9 2 1 I Keeps Keeps 100
Select_From_Queue_For_Processing() Increa Increa
} sing sing
Else 1 2 1 A 5.57 2.99 80
{ 0
If(Whether_Servicing_Time_Mature == Yes) Where I and A stands for inactive and active.
{
If(Queue_Length == Empty) The rows1, 2 (which is nothing but the serial
Processor_Status = Idle number written in the left most column) show the results
Else of Method-1 using input data from Table-1 at Node-1,
Select_From_Queue_For_Processing() where the average response (wait) time without load
} balancing stabilizes to about 1.41 (0.40) and with load
} balancing it stabilizes to about 1.48 (0.44) which is
If (Scheduling_Period_Mature == Yes ) slightly more than the values obtained without load
BalanceQueue () ; balancing. Similarly the rows 3, 4 show at Node-2, where
} while (Whether_Simulation_Period_Matures ==No ); the average response (wait) time without load balancing
stabilizes to about 3.52 (2.21) and with load balancing it
6. LOAD BALANCING ALGORITHMS stabilizes at the smaller value of about 2.33 (1.05); and
the rows 5, 6 show at Node-3, where the average
Load balancing algorithms have several variants. The response (wait) time without load balancing stabilizes to
simplest variant sends jobs from sites with two or more about 3.54 (1.40) and with load balancing it stabilizes at
jobs to the site with no job, i.e., idle sites. Another the smaller value of about 2.90 (0.78). Finally the rows 7,
variant sends jobs to sites with less than a fixed number 8 show the average system response (wait) time without
of jobs. Yet another variant removes jobs from sites only load balancing stabilizes to about 2.72 (1.37) and with
if the number of jobs exceeds some threshold number. To load balancing it stabilizes at about 2.01 (0.68).
balance the load, first of all we calculate the average load At individual nodes the performance may
of the connected nodes then try to balance the load in one improve or degrade in terms of response time, wait time,
of the following three ways: and percentage busy time. It depends on whether jobs are
transferred from or to the node. For example, at Node-1
the performance degrades because jobs are transferred to
the Node-1 from Node-2 and 3. For the same reason
performance in Nodes-2 and 3 improves. However, the
overall performance of the DCS improves when load
balancing is done. It is worth mentioning that the load
balancing only improves the response (wait) time of the
user at the expense of others (conservation law).
The rows 9, 10 show the result of Method-1
using input data from Table-2 at unstable Node-1, where
the average response (wait) time never stabilizes and
increases without bound but due to load balancing it
stabilizes to about 5.57 (2.99) which is a significant
improvement. It should also be noted that the average
percentage busy time of a processor at Node-1 remains at
100% (always busy), but due to load balancing its
average percentage busy time decreases.
If one compares the system responses and wait
times of various methods then we find that Method-2 and
3 are better than Method-1. This is quite expected
because in Method-1 only the queue length is taken into
account irrespective of service duration of the jobs in the
queue or the rate of arrival of local jobs. One can also
seen that methods-2 and 3 give almost identical results.
b) Simulation in a Hypercube Network
We run the simulation without load balancing
with the parameters of Table-3 and Table-4 and then
again we repeat the same simulation with load balancing.
The data (but not included here due to lack of space)
shows that the average system response and wait time
improves due to load balancing.
8. CONCLUSION
In this work, we have presented the simulation studies on
the performance of no load sharing and load sharing
networks of processors. We have shown that load sharing
improves performance over no load sharing if the DCS
system is a stable system. The effect of load balancing is
most effective if the system as a whole remains stable but
a few of its nodes are unstable.
In any DCS, load balancing is done by
averaging of some parameter(s) only within the buddy set
– directly connected neighbor nodes – of a node. In case
of a completely connected DCS, averaging within buddy
set implies averaging over the entire DCS. If the DCS is
not completely connected then the averaging of
parameter(s) in buddy set is very much local and the
effect of load balancing spreads over the entire DCS after
only a few loads balancing. Hence, in due course of time
the effect of load balancing is felt in the entire DCS.
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