Performance evaluation of scheduling policies in symmetric multiprocessing environments

The shift of hardware architecture towards parallel execution led to a broad usage of multi-core processors in desktop systems and in server systems. The benefit of additional processor cores for software performance depends on the software's parallelism as well as the operating system scheduler's capabilities. Especially, the load on the available processors (or cores) strongly influences response times and throughput of software applications. Hence, a sophisticated understanding of the mutual influence of software behaviour and operating system schedulers is essential for accurate performance evaluations. Multi-core systems pose new challenges for performance analysis and developers of operating systems. For example, an optimal scheduling policy for multi-server systems, such as shortest remaining processing time (SRPT) for single-server systems, is not yet known in queueing theory. In this paper, we present a detailed experimental evaluation of general purpose operating system (GPOS) schedulers in symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) environments. In particular, we are interested in the influence of multiprocessor load balancing on software performance. Additionally, the evaluation includes effects of GPOS schedulers that can also occur in single-processor environments, such as I/O-boundedness of tasks and different prioritisation strategies. The results presented in this paper provide the basis for the future development of more accurate performance models of today's software systems.