International Symposium on Electronic Commerce and Security
A Deadline and Cost Constrained Optimization Algorithm for Scheduling
Applications in Grids Based on Proportional Share Systems
Dazhen Wang, Kwang Mong Sim, Benyun Shi
Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University
dzwang@comp.hkbu.edu.hk , g_negotiation@yahoo.com , byshi@comp.hkbu.edu.hk
Abstract
Since computation of Grids enable the sharing,
selection, query and aggregation of geographically
distributed resources for solving large-scale problems,
developing mechanisms for Grid resource scheduling is a
complex undertaking problem. We had investigated
several famous schedule methods proposed by Nimrod-G,
a famous computational economy framework for
regulating the supply and demand for resources.
In this paper, we propose a novel scheduling algorithm,
called deadline and cost constrained optimization
algorithm, which extends Buyya’s cost optimization and
time optimization algorithm, keeping the cost and time
optimization at same time. Our optimization algorithm,
which is based on proportional share (PS), allows users
to bid higher in order to gain more resource shares.
Therefore, this algorithm adjusts a user bid periodically
on these systems in order to finish the application on time.
Empirical results show that the algorithm had better
performance than with conventional algorithms.
1. Introduction
Computational Grids [1] enable the coordinated and
aggregated use of geographically distributed resources,
often owned by autonomous organizations, for solving
large-scale problems in science, engineering, and
commerce [2]. However, Grid services composition,
resource management and scheduling in these
environments are a complex undertaking [3]. Not only
because Grids can be large scale network (up to Internet
size) and stakeholders (providers and consumers) have
different constraints and objectives, but also due to the
geographic distribution of resources that are often owned
by different organizations having different usage policies
and cost models, and varying loads and availability
patterns.
Resource management systems need to provide
mechanisms and tools that realize the goals of both
service providers and consumers. The resource consumers
need a utility model to represent their resource demand
and preferences, and brokers that automatically generate
K. M. Sim gratefully acknowledges financial support for this work from
the Hong Kong Research Grant Council, Project code:
RGC/HKBU210906.
978-0-7695-3258-5/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ISECS.2008.116
strategies for choosing providers based on the utility
model. Furthermore, the brokers need to manage all issues
associated with the execution of the underlying
application. The service providers need economic
protocols that help them to offer competitive services. For
the market to be competitive and efficient, coordination
mechanisms are required that help the market reach an
equilibrium price, that is, the market price at which the
supply of a service equals the quantity demanded [4].
Numerous economic theories have been proposed in the
literature and many commonly used economic models for
selling goods and services can be employed as negotiation
protocols in Grid computing. Sim [5] argued that software
agents, in particular e-negotiation agents, can play an
essential role in realizing the Grid vision.
In Nimrod-G economy framework, the resource broker
acts as an interface between the user and distributed
resources and hides the complexities of Grid computing.
It performs resource discovery, negotiates for access costs
using trading services, maps jobs to resources
(scheduling), stages the application and data for
processing (deployment), starts job execution, and finally
gathers the results. It is also responsible for monitoring
and tracking application execution progress along with
adapting to the changes in Grid runtime environment,
variation in resource share availability, and failures. The
resource brokers use economy-driven deadline and budget
constrained (DBC) scheduling algorithms for allocating
resources to application jobs in such a way that the users’
requirements are met. In their work [3], they developed
three scheduling algorithms for cost, time, and time-
variant optimization strategies that support deadline and
budget constraints based on post price model. In this
work, we propose a new scheduling algorithm, called
DBC cost-time optimization, which extends the DBC
cost-optimization and time-optimization algorithm by
keeping minimizing weighted combination with cost and
time of computation at the minimum. We demonstrate the
ability of this new scheduling algorithm by implementing
it within the economic Grid resource broker simulator
built using the GridSim toolkit [2].
Kelly [6] has introduced a notion of (weighted)
proportional fairness where an allocation is made such
that the sum of (weighted) proportional gains cannot be
increased. Because of the ease of implement ability,
proportional share systems are often advocated for
resource allocation. Thus, we wish to incorporate
46
proportional allocation in our mechanism. Furthermore, it
can show the status competition of each brokers compare
with Nimrod-G. In contrast to Nimrod-G, we require a set
of criteria to select our allocation mechanism; we had
proposed a mechanism where a broker can verify an
accurate allocation. At the same time, we can extend the
scheduling method of Nimrod-G into our new
proportional share systems.
A number of projects are investigating scheduling on
distributed systems. In computational resources, the
notion of proportional allocation also exists as the lottery
scheduling mechanisms partition resources in direct
proportion to the tickets owned, where the tickets are
similar to weights. Therefore we wish to incorporate
proportional allocation in our mechanism.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section
2 presents the GridSim deadline and cost optimization
algorithm in Nimrod-G framework. In contrast to
Nimrod-G, we proposed a new scheduling method, which
attempts to minimize deadline and cost optimization at
same time based on market models. In Section 3, we
investigate the scenario of schedule resource based on
proportional share system. Whereas section 4 reports the
experimental simulations and empirical results, and
section 5 summarizes the paper along with future work.
2. Deadline and cost optimization algorithm
In an economic model, the scheduler can use the
information gathered by a resource discoverer and also
negotiate with resource owners to establish service price.
The resource that offers the best price and meets resource
requirements can eventually be selected. This can be
achieved by resource reservation and bidding. If the user
deadline is relaxed, the chances of obtaining low-cost
access to resources are high. The cost of resources can
vary with time and the resource owner will have the full
control over deciding access cost. Furthermore, the cost
can vary among users. The scheduler can even solicit bids
from resource providers in an open market, and selects the
feasible service-provider(s). To accomplish this, we need
scheduling algorithms that take the application processing
requirements, Grid resource dynamics, and the user
quality of service (QoS) requirements such as the
deadline, budget, and their optimization preference into
consideration. In Buyya’s early work, he had discussed
deadline and budget constrained (DBC) algorithms for
scheduling Grid resources.
Scheduling algorithms usually need to deal with
different requests such as job processing time and job cost
which based on DBC. In real Grid environment, meeting
every request may be difficult. Buyya proposed three
scheduling strategies: Time optimal, Cost optimal, Timed
optimal based on cost optimal(C-T). Sections 2.1 and 2.2
provide mathematic analyses of these models, because
Buyya model can not meet request of complex request in
47
grid, we give a new strategy which integrate two factor,
time and cost, to maximize benefit.
2.1 Cost optimization and time optimization
strategy
Cost optimal based on DBC: Jobs prefer to be done as
economically as possible. The cost is composed of the
cost of accessing service at resource provider.
min[Ck ]
∀k (1)
Time optimal based on DBC: Jobs prefer the element
of budget set which gives the least response time Tk . The
time Tk is composed of Job j located on Pi computes the
service time at processor Pk from the following:
min[Tk = u j / sk + reqC j * d i ,k + rspC j * d k ,i ] (2)
∀k
reqC j * di ,k is the network delay of current network
when send a request message for a job, rspC j * d k ,i is the
network delay when received the number of bytes of
result.
2.2 Deadline and cost optimization strategy
Schedule strategy of Buyya did not consider both time
and cost factors at same time, which may be requested by
some jobs in grid environment. To address this problem,
we provide deadline and cost optimization strategy which
place a relative preference parameter of time over cost at
processor, this is given by the equation below （ a is
weight coefficient giving relative importance to time, we
had normalization time and cost factors, j ∈ [1, N ] ）
c j − min[Ck ] T j − min[Tk ]
Min{α ∀k
+ (1 − α ) ∀k
}
∀j max[C k ] − min[Ck ] max[Tk ] − min[Tk ]
∀k ∀k ∀k ∀k (3)
Considering the two factors of scheduling, we propose
deadline and cost optimization strategy: when a grid
resource broker request resource, first we give the
deadline and budget he can endured. The scheduling
method arranges new strategy most optimal resource to
GRB. In this mechanism, a has relation with QoS which
a user request. If service time weight is higher than time,
then a is relatively smaller, and vice versa.
Contrast to cost optimal and time optimal scheduling,
deadline and cost optimization strategy integrate time and
cost two different factors based on DBC, which satisfy the
complex QoS request of most jobs in grid. The cost of job
request should consider many factors, such as CPU,
memory, disk, soft, etc [3].
The deadline and cost optimization strategy has three
stages; first, create broker request sequence and synthesis
cost of resource. Second, filter unmatched records which
beyond DBC value. Third, sort resource by increasing
synthesis cost, for each resource in order; assign as many
jobs as possible to the resource, without exceeding the
deadline. Repeat steps until all requests are processed.
3. Schedule resource based on PS systems
In Nimrod-G, a user specifies QoS parameters, such as
deadline and budget to a broker. Then, the broker
schedule user’s tasks to resources with different
allocations system, which does not use a proportional
share schedule system. GridSim[3] adopted Post Price
model as its economic model, in time optimization
scheduling algorithm and cost optimization scheduling
algorithm, it just simply assigns one or many jobs to the
one resource only, the resource occupy type are
exclusively occupy it , therefore it only considers about
the scenario of job in sequence queue. It does not
considers the problem of job competition, however, in the
real Grid environments, the occupy type of resource are
mostly share type. Moreover, users from different VOs
may competing to use the same resource at the same time.
In fact, maximizing utilization and ensuring fairness
among users are two major issues in resource allocation.
A system that uses a proportional share algorithm [7, 8],
calculates a user share of a resource based on a user
weight in relation to the total weight of all users in the
system. However, a normal proportional share system
does not check the validity of each user weight. This will
lead to incorrect priority when one user gives a low-
priority task the same weight as high-priority tasks of
other users. In this paper, the proportional share system
based on the user’s bidding price are proposed, therefore,
users with a tight deadline will bid higher in order to gain
more resource shares.
3.1 Allocation Mechanism
The Grid allocation problem can be formulated as
follows:
At first, N brokers of users competing for a resource
with fixed finite capacity. The resource is allocated using
market mechanism, where the resource schedule depends
on the relative signals or bids sent by the brokers. We
assume that each broker submits a signal si to the
resource. In our proportional share mode, we want our
allocations to be proportionally fair by bidding price. This
can be achieved with the following allocation rule:
s (4)
xi ( s ) = i
∑j i
s submits a nonzero bid), if and only if:
We note that this rule satisfies the proportionally fair
criterion for allocation in the systems proposed for
computational resources. In terms of cost of computation,
we note that it takes O(N) operations to perform the
allocation presented in equation (4), which is the minimal
cost for making variable allocations to N brokers. If the
broker has no extra profit, the cost for each broker is
ci ( s, x ) = si (5)
3.2 Broker Utility
We assume that each broker has a valuation vi ( xi ) for
48
receiving an allocation xi .We make the following
assumptions about brokers' valuations:
Assumption 1：For all i ∈ {1,...N }
vi ( xi ) is continuously differentiable
vi′ ( xi ) > 0 ； ∀xi ∈ (0,1)
The first assumption captures the fact that broker's
performance or marginal valuation of performance should
not change dramatically given a slight change in
allocation. The second assumption is intuitive as a
broker's valuation should increase with allocation. Each
broker's utility is the difference between the valuation and
cost of its allocation:
U i ( s ) = vi ( xi ( s)) − ci ( s , x)
Substituting from Equations (4) and (5), we have:
si (6)
U i ( s ) = U i ( si , s− i ) = vi ( ) − si
si + s− i + ε
where s− i = ∑ N −1 s j − si is the sum of the bids of all
j =1
agents excluding the i-th agent and sN = ε is a bid made
by an agent representing the resource. By bidding ε , the
resource has a way of declaring a reservation value for its
resource and prevents the possibility of agents colluding
to purchase the resource for an arbitrarily small amount of
money. The first order necessary condition for a
maximizing interior solution is:
U i′ ( si , s− i ) = vi′( xi ( s )) xi′ ( s ) − 1

si si
= vi′ ( ) −1 = 0
si + s− i + ε ( si + s− i + ε ) 2
Can be writing in to:
si ( s + s + ε )2
vi′ ( ) − i −i =0
si + s− i + ε s− i + ε
The left hand side of the above equation is a decreasing
function of si as vi′ (.) is decreasing in its argument,
si / si + s− i + ε is an increasing function of si and the
second term has si only in the numerator. So, an interior
solution exists if and only if the left hand side is positive
when si = 0. A broker will participate in the bid (i.e.,
vi′ (0) > s− i + ε
In the application, each user has a broker that is
responsible in monitoring the progress of application and
managing on how much to bid on each resource. A user
can be part of many VO domains [15]. We consider a
scenario where brokers are generated at some subset (user
request) of nodes in Grid with a sequence of jobs to
complete. The jobs require access to resources available
at various nodes throughout the Grid. Based on some
budget constraints, the broker attempts to purchase
resources throughout the Grid to complete its set of jobs
according to a given performance measure or utility ∂L qik − qik s−ki k 2

function. We will assume that the brokers have perfect = + λ = 0 Î： λ = ( si ) ，

knowledge about the states of demand (or equivalently,
the prices) of various resources in the Grid through GIS
services. From this, a broker will choose a sequence of
resources that it will attempt to purchase service from to
complete its tasks.
Let us assume that the i-th broker has a sequence of
k Buyya had already implemented the time optimization
jobs with ki tasks, where qi is the size of the job of the
k-th task. Let Cik be the capacity of the resource providing
the service needed by the k-th task of the i-th broker.
We assume that every resource allocates its services is
proportionally fair mention above characterized by
Equations (4) and (5). In this context, the bid will
constitute a payment that the broker is willing to make per
k
unit of time that it uses the resource. Let si be the bid of
the i-th broker for resource chosen for the k-th task on its
k investment; we may consider the situation in the future.
itinerary and s− i be the sum of the bids of other brokers
competing for that resource (which includes the bid made
by the k-th resource). Then, the rate of service obtained
∂sik Cik Cik (sik ) 2 s−ki
Because λ is identical for all tasks, we have the
following relationships between optimal bids:
s−k i
sik = sij
s−ji
algorithm that schedules a user application on post-price
models; we now extend it in to proportional share
allocation systems.
3.4 Time optimization Algorithm based（DBC）
We now consider the situation where a broker is given
an investment, Ei , which it may not exceed as it attempts
to minimize the total time taken to complete its jobs,
moreover, it meets the request of deadline based
constraint. There is no benefit for returning any of the
This can be expressed as the following optimization
problem:
Ki Ki

by the i-th broker for its k-th task is min ∑ tik s.t. ∑e k
i ≤ Ei
k =1 k =1
sk
xik = Cik ( k i k ) 3.5 Deadline and Cost Optimization Algorithm
si + s−i We can define the problem as the agent balance its
Then, the time taken to complete that job will be performance as measured by the time taken to complete
qk (s k + s k ) its jobs and the cost of obtaining service. We can consider
tik = i i k k − i it as the following criterion:
Ci si Ki Ki
The expense to the broker is the bid times the duration min ∑ α ik eik + (1 − α ik )∑ tik
of service, which yields k =1 k =1

q k (sk + sk ) where α represents the relative value to the i-th agent of

k
eik = sik tik = i i k −i i
Ci the time taken to complete the k-th job relative to its cost,
We can extend the schedule strategy of Nimrod-G in our equations, it is a weight coefficient. The agent is
based on proportional share system according to the minimizing a weighted combination of the total cost and
above analysis. the total time taken to complete all its jobs.
3.3 Cost optimization Algorithm based (DBC)
We consider another broker task where a sequence of 4. Performance Evaluation
jobs needs to be completed in a specified amount of time
(deadline based constraint), Ti, while minimizing the cost In this section, we evaluate the three policies discussed
accrued. This can be expressed as the following earlier to determine their effectiveness.
optimization problem: We construct a simulated experiment platform based on
Ki Ki
different resource numbers, varying from 20 to 200;
min ∑ eik s.t. ∑t i
k
≤ Ti different job numbers (from 5 to 150). Three optimization
k =1 k =1
algorithms (i.e., cost optimization, time optimization, cost
We solve this problem using the Lagrange method. We
and time optimization) are used in schedule methods. The
first introduce the Lagrange
ki ki
relative value α is set to be 0.5.
L = ∑ eik + λ (∑ tik − Ti )
k =1 k =1

Substituting for tik and eik and taking partial derivatives

with to sik , we have

49

Figure 1 Average time and average cost in different
number resource and different strategy
It can be observed that Deadline and Cost
Optimization curve is between cost, time and C-T curve.
The essence of C-T strategy is cost optimal strategy, it
have little difference with cost optimal scheduling. Where
Deadline and Cost Optimization mixed the time and cost
factors, by adjusting the weights, we easily adjust
preference; hence it is dynamic and overall.
As the resource number increasing in the proportional
share system, it can be find in Figure1 that the average
finish time of job is decreasing, and the average cost of
execute job is also has a slight reduce. Moreover, the
average cost becomes stable, i.e., when more resource
adds into system, it can not reduce the average cost of the
whole system any more.
5. Conclusion and future work
This work explores issues of framework about
economic models and different schedule algorithms in
Nimrod-G. Based on the proportional share system, we
present a deadline and cost optimization schedule
strategy, and extend schedule method of Nimrod-G in to
proportional share system. In contrast to cost optimal and
time optimal, deadline and cost optimization strategy
considers a coefficient weight factor. In contrast with the
traditional schedule strategy, deadline and cost
optimization is easier to realized and more dynamic for
weight adjustment.
Consider the problem of software brokers being used
as proxies for the procurement of computational Grid
resources and applications requirement. We investigate a
time optimization algorithm, a cost optimization
algorithm, a deadline and cost optimization algorithm
50
based on proportional system that schedules a user
application in resource allocation systems.
In the future, we plan to design the system more details.
Moreover, we are planning to incorporate resource
reservation and different economic models into resource
allocation. This allows us to contrast the efficiency of
different economic models. In addition, we are
considering credit evaluation and job preemption and job
migration policy that tries to achieve the integrity of
market transactions.
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