SPORT: An algorithm for Divisible Load Scheduling with result collection on heterogeneous Systems

Divisible Load Theory (DLT) is an established mathematical framework to study Divisible Load Scheduling (DLS). However, traditional DLT does not address the scheduling of results back to source (i.e., result collection), nor does it comprehensively deal with system heterogeneity. In this paper, the dlsrchets (DLS with Result Collection on HET-erogeneous Systems) problem is addressed. The few papers to date that have dealt with dlsrchets, proposed simplistic lifo (Last In, First Out) and fifo (First In, First Out) type of schedules as solutions to dlsrchets. In this paper, a new polynomial time heuristic algorithm, sport (System Parameters based Optimized Result Transfer), is proposed as a solution to the dlsrchets problem. With the help of simulations, it is proved that the performance of sport is significantly better than existing algorithms. The other major contributions of this paper include, for the first time ever, (a) the derivation of the condition to identify the presence of idle time in a fifo schedule for two processors, (b) the identification of the limiting condition for the optimality of fifo and lifo schedules for two processors, and (c) the introduction of the concept of equivalent processor in DLS for heterogeneous systems with result collection.