A Bee Colony Task Scheduling Algorithm in Computational Grids

The efficient scheduling of the independent and sequential tasks on distributed and heterogeneous computing resources within grid computing environments is an NP-complete problem. Therefore, using heuristic approaches to solve the scheduling problem is a very common and also acceptable method in these environments. In this paper, a new task scheduling algorithm based on bee colony optimization approach is proposed. The algorithm uses artificial bees to appropriately schedule the submitted tasks to the grid resources. Applying the proposed algorithm to the grid computing environments, the maximum delay and finish times of the tasks are reduced. Furthermore, the total makespan of the environment is minimized when the algorithm is applied. The proposed algorithm not only minimizes the makespan of the environment, but also satisfies the deadline and priority requirements of the tasks. Simulation results obtained from applying the algorithm to different grid environments show the prominence of the algorithm to other similar scheduling algorithms.