Many-Task Computing

Many-task computing (MTC) aims to bridge the gap§between two paradigms, high-throughput computing§(HTC) and high-performance computing (HPC). MTC is§reminiscent to HTC, but it differs in the emphasis of§using many computing resources over short periods of§time to accomplish many computational tasks, where§the primary metrics are measured in seconds, not§operations per month. MTC denotes high-performance§computations comprising of multiple distinct§activities, coupled via file system operations. Tasks§may be small or large, uniprocessor or§multiprocessor, compute-intensive or data-intensive,§static or dynamic, homogeneous or heterogeneous. The§aggregate number of tasks, quantity of computing, and§volumes of data may be extremely large. MTC includes§loosely coupled applications that are generally§communication-intensive but not naturally expressed§using message passing interface commonly found in§HPC, drawing attention to the many computations that§are heterogeneous but not happily parallel. This§book explores fundamental issues in defining the MTC§paradigm, as well as theoretical and practical issues§in supporting compute and data intensive applications§on large scale systems.