A Systematic Approach to Classify Design-time Global Scheduling Techniques

The scheduling problem is an important partially solved topic related to a wide range of scientific fields. As it applies to design-time mapping on multiprocessing platforms emphasizing on ordering in time and assignment in place, significant improvements can be achieved. To support this improvement, this article presents a complete systematic classification of the existing scheduling techniques solving this problem in a (near-)optimal way. We show that the proposed approach covers any global scheduling technique, including also future ones. In our systematic classification a technique may belong to one primitive class or to a hybrid combination of such classes. In the latter case the technique is efficiently decomposed into more primitive components each one belonging to a specific class. The systematic classification assists in the in-depth understanding of the diverse classes of techniques which is essential for their further improvement. Their main characteristics and structure, their similarities and differences, and the interrelationships of the classes are conceived. In this way, our classification provides guidance for contributing in novel ways to the broad domain of global scheduling techniques.