Scheduling Data Intensive Scientific Workflows in Cloud Environment Using Nature Inspired Algorithms

Abstract

Workflows are a commonly used model to describe applications consisting of computational tasks with data or control flow dependencies. They are used in domains of bioinformatics, astronomy, physics, etc., for data-driven scientific applications. Execution of data-intensive workflow applications in a reasonable amount of time demands a high-performance computing environment. Cloud computing is a way of purchasing computing resources on demand through virtualization technologies. It provides the infrastructure to build and run workflow applications, which is called ‘Infrastructure as a Service.' However, it is necessary to schedule workflows on cloud in a way that reduces the cost of leasing resources. Scheduling tasks on resources is a NP hard problem and using meta-heuristic algorithms is an obvious choice for the same. This chapter presents application of nature-inspired algorithms: particle swarm optimization, shuffled frog leaping algorithm and grey wolf optimization algorithm to the workflow scheduling problem on the cloud. Simulation results prove the efficacy of the suggested algorithms.