RUPER-LB: Load balancing embarrasingly parallel applications in unpredictable cloud environments

Abstract: The suitability of cloud computing has been studied by several authors to run scientific applications. However, the unpredictable performance fluctuations in these environments hinders the migration of scientific applications to cloud providers. To mitigate these effects, this work presents RUPER-LB, a load balancer for loosely-coupled iterative parallel applications that runs on infrastructures with disparate computing capabilities. The results obtained with a real world simulation software, show the suitability of RUPER-LB to adapt this kind of applications to execution environments with variable performance and highlight the convenience of its adoption.