This paper investigates how different resources can be fairly allocated among users that possibly prioritize them differently. We introduce a fairness policy, called Dominant Resource Fairness (DRF), which is an adaptation of max-min fairness from networking to datacenter environments. We show that DRF, unlike other policies which we investigated, satisfies a number of desirable properties that a fair datacenter scheduler should have, including guaranteeing that every user gets 1/N of some resource and that users can relinquish resources without hurting other users' allocations. DRF is also envy-free, incentivizing users to correctly report their resource demand. When compared to other intuitive schedulers, as well as competing ones from microeconomic theory, DRF is more fair.
Title
Dominant Resource Fairness: Fair Allocation of Heterogeneous Resources in Datacenters
Published
2010-05-07
Full Collection Name
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Technical Reports
Other Identifiers
EECS-2010-55
Type
Text
Extent
17 p
Archive
The Engineering Library
Usage Statement
Researchers may make free and open use of the UC Berkeley Library’s digitized public domain materials. However, some materials in our online collections may be protected by U.S. copyright law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use (Title 17, U.S.C. § 107) requires permission from the copyright owners. The use or reproduction of some materials may also be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, privacy and publicity rights, or trademark law. Responsibility for determining rights status and permissibility of any use or reproduction rests exclusively with the researcher. To learn more or make inquiries, please see our permissions policies (https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/permissions-policies).