An Empirical Comparison of Global, Partitioned, and Clustered Multiprocessor EDF Schedulers

As multicore platforms become ever larger, overhead-related factors play a greater role in determining which real-time scheduling algorithms are preferable. In this paper, such factors are investigated through an empirical comparison of global, partitioned, and clustered EDF scheduling algorithms on a 24-core Intel system. On this platform, global EDF proved to be a non-viable choice for hard real time systems, while clusters of size six practically approximated global approaches. For soft real-time systems, clustered EDF scheduling algorithms proved to be particularly effective. This study suggests that future global scheduling research should focus on small-to-medium multicore platforms rather than large platforms.