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Learning Scheduling Algorithms for Data Processing Clusters (arxiv.org)
2 points by ngaut on Jan 6, 2019 | hide | past | pdf | 1 comment on HN

In plain words: Instead of hand-tuning rules for each workload, this system learns how to schedule cluster jobs, guided only by a goal like finishing jobs fast. It cut average job completion time by at least 21% versus hand-tuned rules, and up to 2x under heavy load.

Abstract

Efficiently scheduling data processing jobs on distributed compute clusters requires complex algorithms. Current systems, however, use simple generalized heuristics and ignore workload characteristics, since developing and tuning a scheduling policy for each workload is infeasible. In this paper, we show that modern machine learning techniques can generate highly-efficient policies automatically. Decima uses reinforcement learning (RL) and neural networks to learn workload-specific scheduling algorithms without any human instruction beyond a high-level objective such as minimizing average job completion time. Off-the-shelf RL techniques, however, cannot handle the complexity and scale of the scheduling problem. To build Decima, we had to develop new representations for jobs' dependency graphs, design scalable RL models, and invent RL training methods for dealing with continuous stochastic job arrivals. Our prototype integration with Spark on a 25-node cluster shows that Decima improves the average job completion time over hand-tuned scheduling heuristics by at least 21%, achieving up to 2x improvement during periods of high cluster load.

Hongzi Mao, Malte Schwarzkopf, Shaileshh Bojja Venkatakrishnan, Zili Meng, Mohammad Alizadeh
arXiv:1810.01963 · cs.LG, stat.ML · submitted Oct 3, 2018 · updated Aug 21, 2019
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Prototype integration with Spark on a 25-node cluster shows that Decima outperforms several heuristics, including hand-tuned ones, by at least 21%. Further experiments with an industrial production workload trace demonstrate that Decima delivers up to a 17% reduction in average job completion time and scales to large clusters.