Comparison of dynamic and static load-balancing strategies in heterogeneous distributed systems

Although dynamic load-balancing strategies have the potential of performing better than static strategies, they are inevitably more complex. Their complexity and the overheads involved may negate their benefits. A heterogeneous distributed system, with computers of different processing capability but the same functionality, has been examined for two dynamic and two static policies. The results show that both the dynamic and the static policies provide dramatic performance improvements. However, they show that, contrary to common belief, the performance provided by the static policies is not much inferior to that provided by the dynamic policies. Furthermore, if the overheads in load balancing are not negligibly small, static policies are more stable and can offer better performance than dynamic policies.