Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
From: Graham Nash <gnash@ncube.com>
Subject: Re: Load Balancing and Process Assignment
Organization: Integratek
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 20:40:30 GMT
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Message-ID: <31B7423E.16DD@ncube.com>

Saghir Ahmed Shaikh wrote:
> 
> Dear PVM Users:
> 
> I have question reagrdiung the Pvm_spawn Policy. The manual says that
> the processes are assigned in round robin fashion to the available
> hosts. It is not really very clear to me. Does it mean that for
> ten machines m1, m2, m3.... and hundered process 1...100:
> 
> (A) For m1: 1, 10, 20, 30,.....
> and for m2: 2, 20, 30, 40,.....
> (B) For m1: 1, 2, ...10
>     For m2: 11, 12, 13, ...20
> 
> Will (A) happen or (B). Please illustrate. Also drop emailo to my
> address too! Shaikh@ece.utexas.edu
> 

If all wind is in the right direction, it's (A). The reason I say this
is that either all the machines have to be the same and you specified
that type of machine on the pvm_spawn, or you specified to run any 
where. PVM also remembers where it was on allocating tasks, so the next
pvm_spawn will not start again with the first machine in the list, but
rather at the next machine it would have used.

If you think about it, (A) is clearly a lot better choice than (B) -
try allocating 4 tasks to 5 machines. You really want one per machine
not five to the first.

Hope this helps

Graham Nash

