A classification for the implementations of heterogeneous strong migration of computations

The Grid's intrinsic characteristics of high instability and unpredictability, makes adaptation a must-have requirement. The capability of moving a running computation to another available host has the desirable property of allowing the topology of distributed applications to adapt dynamically, reacting to changes in the environment. An outstanding example is that of opportunistic computing, where a mechanism must exist in order to evict remote computations in favor of the local owner. This work studies the problem of heterogeneous strong migration, identifying its structure and the taxonomy of the methods currently used for its implementation.