Patent ID: 7293004

Claim:
A method for tuning state-based scheduling policies in a system containing a number of central processing units (CPUs), comprising: recurrently estimating a long-term benefit to the system by feeding a system state as input to a parametric value function and computing an output from the parametric value function; making scheduling decisions for the CPUs based on the estimated long-term benefit to the system; tuning a parameter of the parametric value function based on current and previously estimated long-term benefit to the system, thereby facilitating more effective scheduling policies; wherein the parametric value function comprises a number of fuzzy rules; wherein each fuzzy rule's output is a parameter; and wherein tuning the parameter involves adjusting the parameter value by the product of: a learning rate; the sum of the improvement of job utilities and the improvement of the output of the parametric value function; a weight calculated based on a previous state for the fuzzy rule corresponding to the parameter being tuned; wherein the state of the system changes when an oversubscription occurs, a preemption occurs and the machine is not oversubscribed prior to the preemption, or the machine is not oversubscribed and a job has finished; and wherein tuning of the parameter of the parametric value function occurs after every system state changes.