Decentralized Low-Latency Task Scheduling for Ad-Hoc Computing

Abstract

End users can mutually share their computing resources in ad-hoc computing environments with code offloading. This augments the computational power of resource-constrained mobile devices and enables interactive user-facing applications that would otherwise exceed single device capabilities. However, ad-hoc computing comes along with new challenges such as heterogeneity and unreliability of devices. Resource consumers have to make task scheduling decisions without relying on a centralized scheduler to facilitate sub-second response times in environments with communication latencies that are in the order of the task execution times. In this paper, we present a decentralized low-latency task scheduling approach that minimizes job execution times in heterogeneous ad-hoc environments. We propose two decentralized task scheduling algorithms that select powerful computing resources for parallel task execution while avoiding delays that arise from congested devices. We provide an analytical model of the performance of these algorithms before conducting an extensive evaluation based on real-world applications and a realistic computing infrastructure. Our results show that decentralized scheduling can dynamically adapt to varying system load and outperform a central scheduler in both task and job execution times, which enables low-latency task offloading in ad-hoc environments.