Application-oriented scheduling in the Knowledge Grid: A model and architecture

This paper describes a model and an architecture of an application-oriented scheduler designed in the context of the KNOWLEDGE GRID: an environment developed for supporting knowledge discovery on Grids. The KNOWLEDGE GRID scheduler allows abstracting from computational resources through the use of abstract hosts, i.e. hosts whose characteristics are only partially specified, and instantiates abstract hosts to concrete ones trying to improve applications' performances. The paper proposes a scheduling model, an open architecture for its support, and the specific scheduling functionalities used in the KNOWLEDGE GRID. The proposed model and architecture are general with respect to possible specific application domains and scheduling functionalities. Thus, they are potentially useful also in different Grid environments.