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Chapter

Types of Task Scheduling

Algorithms in Cloud Computing
Environment
Tahani Aladwani

Abstract

Cloud computing is one of the most important technologies used in recent

times, it allows users (individuals and organizations) to access computing
resources (software, hardware, and platform) as services remotely through
the Internet. Cloud computing is distinguished from traditional computing
paradigms by its scalability, adjustable costs, accessibility, reliability, and on-
demand pay-as-you-go services. As cloud computing is serving millions of users
simultaneously, it must have the ability to meet all users requests with high
performance and guarantee of quality of service (QoS). Therefore, we need to
implement an appropriate task scheduling algorithm to fairly and efficiently meet
these requests. Task scheduling problem is the one of the most critical issues in
cloud computing environment because cloud performance depends mainly on it.
There are various types of scheduling algorithms; some of them are static sched-
uling algorithms that are considered suitable for small or medium scale cloud
computing; and dynamic scheduling algorithms that are considered suitable for
large scale cloud computing environments. In this research, we attempt to show
the most popular three static task scheduling algorithms performance there are:
first come first service (FCFS), short job first scheduling (SJF), MAX-MIN. The
CloudSim simulator has been used to measure their impact on algorithm complex-
ity, resource availability, total execution time (TET), total waiting time (TWT),
and total finish time (TFT).

Keywords: task scheduling algorithms, load balance, performance

1. Introduction

Cloud computing is a new technology derived from grid computing and dis-
tributed computing and refers to using computing resources (hardware, software,
and platforms) as a service and provided to beneficiaries on demand through the
Internet [1]. It is the first technology that uses the concept of commercial imple-
mentation of computer science with public users [2]. It relies on sharing resources
among users through the use of the virtualization technique. High performance
can be provided by a cloud computing, based on distributing workloads across all
resources fairly and effectively to get less waiting time, execution time, maximum
throughput, and exploitation of resources effectively. Still, there are many chal-
lenges prevalent in cloud computing, Task scheduling and load balance are the

1
Scheduling Problems - New Applications and Trends

biggest yet because it is considered the main factors that control other performance
criteria such as availability, scalability, and power consumption.

2. Tasks scheduling algorithms overview

Tasks scheduling algorithms are defined as the mechanism used to select the
resources to execute tasks to get less waiting and execution time.

2.1 Scheduling levels

In the cloud computing environment there are two levels of scheduling

algorithms:

• First level: in host level where a set of policies to distribute VMs in host.

• Second level: in VM level where a set of policies to distribute tasks to VM.

In this research we focus on VM level to scheduling tasks, we selected task schedul-

ing algorithms as a research field because it is the biggest challenge in cloud computing
and the main factor that controls the performance criteria such as (execution time,
response time, waiting time, network, bandwidth, services cost) for all tasks and
controlling other factors that can affect performance such as power consumption, avail-
ability, scalability, storage capacity, buffer capacity, disk capacity, and number of users.

2.2 Tasks scheduling algorithms definition and advantages

Tasks scheduling algorithms are defined as a set of rules and policies used to
assign tasks to the suitable resources (CPU, memory, and bandwidth) to get the
highest level possible of performance and resources utilization.

2.2.1 Task scheduling algorithms advantages

• Manage cloud computing performance and QoS.

• Manage the memory and CPU.

• The good scheduling algorithms maximizing resources utilization while

minimizing the total task execution time.

• Improving fairness for all tasks.

• Increasing the number of successfully completed tasks.

• Scheduling tasks on a real-time system.

• Achieving a high system throughput.

• Improving load balance.

2.3 Tasks scheduling algorithms classifications

Tasks scheduling algorithms classified as in Figure 1.

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Types of Task Scheduling Algorithms in Cloud Computing Environment
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86873

Figure 1.
Tasks scheduling classes.

2.3.1 Tasks scheduling algorithms can be classified as follows

• Immediate scheduling: when new tasks arrive, they are scheduled to VMs
directly.

• Batch scheduling: tasks are grouped into a batch before being sent; this type is
also called mapping events.

• Static scheduling: is considered very simple compared to dynamic schedul-

ing; it is based on prior information of the global state of the system. It does
not take into account the current state of VMs and then divides all traffic
equivalently among all VMs in a similar manner such as round robin (RR) and
random scheduling algorithms.

• Dynamic scheduling: takes into account the current state of VMs and does not
require prior information of the global state of the system and distribute the
tasks according to the capacity of all available VMs [4–6].

• Preemptive scheduling: each task is interrupted during execution and can be

moved to another resource to complete execution [6].

• Non-preemptive scheduling: VMs are not re-allocated to new tasks until finish-
ing execution of the scheduled task [6].

In this research, we focus on the static scheduling algorithms. Static scheduling

algorithm such as first come first service (FCFS), shortest job first (SJF), and MAX-
MAX scheduling algorithms in complexity and cost within a small or medium scale.

2.4 Task scheduling system in cloud computing

The task scheduling system in cloud computing passes through three levels [7].

• The first task level: is a set of tasks (Cloudlets) that is sent by cloud users,
which are required for execution.

• The second scheduling level: is responsible for mapping tasks to suitable

resources to get highest resource utilization with minimum makespan. The
makespan is the overall completion time for all tasks from the beginning to the
end [7].

• The third VMs level: is a set of (VMs) which are used to execute the tasks as in
Figure 2.

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Scheduling Problems - New Applications and Trends

Figure 2.
Task scheduling system.

2.5 This level passes through two steps

• The first step is discovering and filtering all the VMs that are presented in the
system and collecting status information related to them by using a datacenter
broker [8].

• In the second step a suitable VM is selected based on task properties [8].

3. Static tasks scheduling algorithms in cloud computing environment

3.1 FCFS

FCFS: the order of tasks in task list is based on their arriving time then
assigned to VMs [3].

3.1.1 Advantages

• Most popular and simplest scheduling algorithm.

• Fairer than other simple scheduling algorithms.

• Depend on FIFO rule in scheduling task.

• Less complexity than other scheduling algorithms.

3.1.2 Disadvantages

• Tasks have high waiting time.

• Not give any priority to tasks. That means when we have large tasks in
the begin tasks list, all tasks must wait a long time until the large tasks to
finish.

• Resources are not consumed in an optimal manner.

• In order to measure the performance achieved by this method, we will be

testing them and then measuring its impact on (fairness, ET, TWT,
and TFT).

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Types of Task Scheduling Algorithms in Cloud Computing Environment
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86873

3.1.3 Assumptions

Some of the assumptions must be taken into account when scheduling tasks to
VMs in the cloud computing environment.

• Number of tasks should be more than the number of VMs, which means that
each VM must execute more than one task.

• Each task is assigned to only one VM resource.

• Lengths of tasks varying from small, medium, and large.

• Tasks are not interrupted once their executions start.

• VMs are independent in terms of resources and control.

• The available VMs are of exclusive usage and cannot be shared among differ-
ent tasks. It means that the VMs cannot consider other tasks until the comple-
tion of the current tasks is in progress [3].

Tasks lengths: assume we have 15 tasks with their lengths as in Table 1.

Table 1.
Set of tasks with different length orders depends on the arrival time for each task.

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Scheduling Problems - New Applications and Trends

3.1.4 VM properties

Assume we have six VMs with different properties based on tasks size:

VM list = {VM1, VM2, VM3, VM4, VM5, VM6}.

MIPS of VM list = {500, 500, 1500, 1500, 2500, 2500}.

We selected a set of VMs with different properties to make each category have VMs
with appropriate ability to serve a specific class of tasks, to improve the load balance.
Because when we use VMs with same properties with all categories it leads to load
imbalance, where each class is different from other classes in terms of tasks lengths.

3.1.5 When applying FCFS, work mechanism will be as following

Figure 3 shows FCFS tasks scheduling algorithm working mechanism and how
tasks are executed based on their arrival time.
Dot arrows refer to first set of tasks scheduling based on their arrival time.
Dash arrows refer to second set of tasks scheduling based on their arrival time.
Solid arrows refer to third set of tasks scheduling based on their arrival time.
And here it is clear to us that t1 is too large compared with t7 and t12. However,
t7 and t12 must wait for t1, which leads to an increase in the TWT, ET, TFT, and a
decrease in fairness.
VM1 = {t1 ⟶ t7 ⟶ t12}.

VM2 = {t2 ⟶ t8 ⟶ t14}.

VM3 = {t3 ⟶ t9 ⟶ t15}.

VM4 = {t4 ⟶ t10}.

VM5 = {t5 ⟶ t11}.

VM6 = {t6 ⟶ t13}.

Table 2 shows how FCFS scheduling algorithm increases waiting time for all tasks.

Figure 3.
FCFS work mechanism.

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Types of Task Scheduling Algorithms in Cloud Computing Environment
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86873

Table 2.
Waiting times of tasks in FCFS.

3.2 SJF

Tasks are sorted based on their priority. Priority is given to tasks based on tasks
lengths and begins from (smallest task ≡ highest priority).

3.2.1 Advantages

• Wait time is lower than FCFS.

• SJF has minimum average waiting time among all tasks scheduling
algorithms.

3.2.2 Disadvantages

• Unfairness to some tasks when tasks are assigned to VM, due to the long
tasks tending to be left waiting in the task list while small tasks are assigned
to VM.

• Taking long execution time and TFT.

7
Scheduling Problems - New Applications and Trends

3.2.3 SJF work mechanism

When applying SJF, work mechanism will be as follows:

Assume we have 15 tasks as in Table 1 above. We will be sorting tasks in the task
list, as in Table 3. Tasks are sorted from smallest task to largest task based on their
lengths as in Table 3, then assigned to VMs list sequential.

3.2.4 Execute tasks will be

VM1 = {t4 ⟶ t6 ⟶ t7}.

VM2 = {t10 ⟶ t9 ⟶ t1}.

VM3 = {t11 ⟶ t13 ⟶ t8}.

VM4 = {t5 ⟶ t14}.

VM5 = {t12 ⟶ t2}.

VM6 = {t3 ⟶ t15}.

Table 4 shows that the large tasks must be waiting in the task list until the small-
est tasks finish execution.

3.3 MAX-MIN

In MAX-MIN tasks are sorted based on the completion time of tasks; long tasks
that take more completion time have the highest priority. Then assigned to the VM
with minimum overall execution time in VMs list.

3.3.1. Advantages

• Working to exploit the available resources in an efficient manner.

• This algorithm has better performance than the FCFS, SJF, and MIN-MIN algorithm.

3.3.2 Disadvantages

• Increase waiting time to small and medium tasks; if we have six long tasks, in
MAX-MIN scheduling algorithm they will take priority in six VMs in VM list,
and short tasks must be waiting until the large tasks finish.

Unfairness to some or most small and medium tasks when tasks are assigned to VM.

• When applying MAX-MIN, Work Mechanism will be as follows.

Table 3.
A set of tasks sorted based on SJF scheduling algorithm.

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Types of Task Scheduling Algorithms in Cloud Computing Environment
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86873

Table 4.
Waiting times of tasks in SJF.

Table 5.
A set of tasks sorted based on MAX-MIN scheduling algorithm.

Assume we have 15 tasks as in Table 1 above. We will be sorting tasks in task

list as in Table 5. Tasks sorted from largest task to smallest task based on highest
completion time. They are then assigned to the VMs with minimum overall execu-
tion time in VMs list.

3.3.3 Execute tasks will be

VM6 = {t1 ⟶ t13 ⟶ t11}.

VM5 = {t8 ⟶ t9 ⟶ t10}.

VM4 = {t7 ⟶ t6 ⟶ t4}.

VM3 = {t15 ⟶ t3}.

VM2 = {t2 ⟶ t12}.

VM1 = {t14 ⟶ t5}.

Tables 6 and 7 shows that the small and medium tasks must be waiting in the
task list until the large tasks finish execution.
Figure 4 shows the TWT and TFT for the three tasks scheduling algorithms FCFS,
SJF, and MAX-MIN. SJF tasks scheduling algorithm is the best in term of TWT and TFT.

9
Scheduling Problems - New Applications and Trends

Table 6.
Waiting time of tasks in MIX-MIN scheduling algorithm.

FCFS SJF MAX-MIN

TWT 739.19 79.59 404

TFT 1969.69 678.69 968.698

Table 7.
Comparison between FCFS tasks scheduling algorithm, SJF, and MAX-MIN in terms of TWT and TFT.

Figure 4.
Comparison between FCFS tasks scheduling algorithm, SJF, and MAX-MIN in terms of TWT and TFT.

4. Conclusion

This chapter introduces the meaning of the tasks scheduling algorithms and
types of static and dynamic scheduling algorithms in cloud computing environ-
ment. This chapter also introduces a comparative study between the static task
scheduling algorithms in a cloud computing environment such as FCFS, SJF, and
MAX-MIN, in terms of TWT, TFT, fairness between tasks, and when becoming
suitable to use?
Experimentation was executed on CloudSim, which is used for modeling the
different tasks scheduling algorithms.

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Types of Task Scheduling Algorithms in Cloud Computing Environment
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86873

Author details

Tahani Aladwani
Mecca, Saudi Arabia

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.

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Scheduling Problems - New Applications and Trends

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