Scheduling and load balancing

Scheduling and Load Balancing techniques are key issues for the performance of applications executed in parallel and distributed environments, and for the efficient utilization of these computational resources. Research in this field has a long history and is well consolidated. Nevertheless, the evolution of parallel and distributed systems toward clusters, computational grids, and global computing environments, introduces new challenging problems that require a new generation of scheduling and load balancing algorithms. Topic 3 in Euro-Par 2004 covers all aspects related to scheduling and load balancing from application and system levels, to theoretical foundations and practical tools. All these aspects are addressed by contributed papers.