On checkpointing and heavy-tails in unreliable computing environments

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we discuss checkpointing issues that should be considered whenever jobs execute in unreliable computing environments. Specifically, we show that if proper check-pointing procedures are not properly implemented, then under certain conditions, job completion time distributions exhibit properties of heavy-tail or power-tail distributions (hereafter referred to as power-tail distributions (PT), which can lead to highly-variable and long completion times.

REFERENCES

• 1: Pierre M. Fiorini , Robert Sheahan , Lester Lipsky, On unreliable computing systems when heavy-tails appear as a result of the recovery procedure, ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, v.33 n.2, p.15-17, September 2005 [doi>10.1145/1101892.1101898]
• 2: Michael Greiner , Manfred Jobmann , Lester Lipsky, The Importance of Power-Tail Distributions for Modeling Queueing Systems, Operations Research, v.47 n.2, p.313-326, February 1999 [doi>10.1287/opre.47.2.313]
• 3: Mor Harchol-Balter , Mark E. Crovella , Cristina D. Murta, On choosing a task assignment policy for a distributed server system, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, v.59 n.2, p.204-228, Nov. 1999 [doi>10.1006/jpdc.1999.1577]
• 4: Will Leland , Teunis J. Ott, Load-balancing heuristics and process behavior, Proceedings of the 1986 ACM SIGMETRICS joint international conference on Computer performance modelling, measurement and evaluation, p.54-69, May 1986, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
• 5: J. S. Plank , W. R. Elwasif, Experimental Assessment of Workstation Failures and Their Impact on Checkpointing Systems, Proceedings of the The Twenty-Eighth Annual International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing, p.48, June 23-25, 1998

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.5 Reliability
          Subjects: Checkpoint/restart

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.0 General
          Subjects: Data communications
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Measurement, Performance, Reliability