boinc/doc/rpc_policy.html

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<title>Scheduler RPC Timing and Retry Policies</title>
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<h2>Scheduler RPC Timing and Retry Policies</h2>
<p>
Each scheduler RPC reports results, gets work, or both. The client's
<b>scheduler RPC policy</b> has several components: when to make a
scheduler RPC, which project to contact, which scheduling server for
that project, how much work to ask for, and what to do if the RPC fails.
</p>
<p>
The scheduler RPC policy has the following goals:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Make as few scheduler RPCs as possible.
</li>
<li>
Use random exponential backoff if a project's scheduling servers
are down. This avoids an RPC storm when the servers come back up.
</li>
<li>
Eventually re-read a project's master URL file in case its set
of schedulers changes.
</li>
<li>
Report results before or soon after their deadlines.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Resource debt</h3>
<p>
The client maintains an exponentially-averaged sum of the CPU time
it has devoted to each project. The constant EXP_DECAY_RATE determines
the decay rate (currently a factor of e every week).
</p>
<p>
Each project is assigned a <b>resource debt</b>, computed as
</p>
<p>
resource_debt = resource_share / exp_avg_cpu
</p>
<p>
Resource debt is a measure of how much work the client owes the
project, and in general the project with the greatest resource debt is
the one from which work should be requested.
</p>
<h3>Minimum RPC time</h3>
<p>
</p>
<p>
The client maintains a <b>minimum RPC time</b> for each project.
This is the earliest time at which a scheduling RPC should be done to
that project (if zero, an RPC can be done immediately). The minimum RPC
time can be set for various reasons:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Because of a request from the project, i.e. a
&lt;request_delay&gt; element in a scheduler reply message.
</li>
<li>
Because RPCs to all of the project's scheduler has failed. An
exponential backoff policy is used.
</li>
<li>
Because one of the project's computations has failed (the
application crashed, or a file upload or download failed). An
exponential backoff policy is used to prevent a cycle of rapid failures.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Scheduler RPC sessions</h3>
<p>
Communication with schedulers is organized into <b>sessions</b>,
each of which may involve many RPCs. There are two types of sessions:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b>Get-work</b> sessions, whose goal is to get a certain amount
of work. Results may be reported as a side-effect.
</li>
<li>
<b>Report-result</b> sessions, whose goal is to report results.
Work may be fetched as a side-effect.
</li>
</ul>
The internal logic of scheduler sessions is encapsulated in the class
SCHEDULER_OP. This is implemented as a state machine, but its logic
expressed as a process might look like: <pre>
get_work_session() {
while estimated work &lt; high water mark
P = project with greatest debt and min_rpc_time &lt; now
for each scheduler URL of P
attempt an RPC to that URL
if no error break
if some RPC succeeded
P.nrpc_failures = 0
else
P.nrpc_failures++
P.min_rpc_time = exponential_backoff(P.min_rpc_failures)
if P.nrpc_failures mod MASTER_FETCH_PERIOD = 0
P.fetch_master_flag = true
for each project P with P.fetch_master_flag set
read and parse master file
if error
P.nrpc_failures++
P.min_rpc_time = exponential_backoff(P.min_rpc_failures)
if got any new scheduler urls
P.nrpc_failures = 0
P.min_rpc_time = 0
}
report_result_session(project P) {
for each scheduler URL of project
attempt an RPC to that URL
if no error break
if some RPC succeeded
P.nrpc_failures = 0
else
P.nrpc_failures++;
P.min_rpc_time = exponential_backoff(P.min_rpc_failures)
}
</pre> The logic for initiating scheduler sessions is expressed in the
following poll function: <pre>
if a scheduler RPC session is not active
if estimated work is less than low-water mark
start a get-work session
else if some project P has overdue results
start a report-result session for P;
is P is the project with greatest resource debt,
the RPC request should ask for enough work to bring us up
to the high-water mark
</pre>
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