Dependable Grid Workflow Scheduling Based on Resource Availability

Due to the highly dynamic feature, dependable workflow scheduling is critical in the Grid environment. Various scheduling algorithms have been proposed, but seldom consider the resource reliability. Current Grid systems mainly exploit fault tolerance mechanism to guarantee the dependable workflow execution, which, however, wastes system resources. The paper proposes a dependable Grid workflow scheduling system (called DGWS). It introduces a Markov Chain-based resource availability prediction model. Based on the model, a reliability cost driven workflow scheduling algorithm is presented. The performance evaluation results, including the simulation on both parametric randomly generated DAGs and two real scientific workflow applications, demonstrate that compared to present workflow scheduling algorithms, DGWS improves the success ratio of tasks and diminishes the makespan of workflow, so improves the dependability of workflow execution in the dynamic Grid environments.