Design of a simulation system for distributed task scheduling algorithms

Task scheduling is an important part of any distributed computing environment. Distributed task scheduling algorithms aim at attaining increased performance of a distributed system by distributing the tasks of distributed programs onto the processors of the system. In designing a task scheduling mechanism, one needs to evaluate performance of task scheduling algorithms in order to decide among several algorithms or several versions of an algorithm. This paper describes the design of a general simulation system for distributed task scheduling algorithms. The design is highly modular and provides a system that can be configured and extended to simulate and evaluate different algorithms under different environments. The implementation of DisMimic, a prototype of the simulation system is also described. The framework described in this paper provides a basis of building toolbox to simplify the study of distributed task scheduling algorithms.