Examples of FIFO and Fair Sharing Policies

Both FIFO (First-In, First-Out) and Fair scheduling policies work differently in batch jobs and ad hoc jobs.

Batch Example

In this example, two queues have the same resources available. One uses the FIFO ordering policy, and the other uses the Fair Sharing policy. A user submits three jobs to each queue one right after another, waiting just long enough for each job to start. The first job uses 6x the resource limit in the queue, the second 4x, and last 2x.

• In the FIFO queue, the 6x job would start and run to completion, then the 4x job would start and run to completion, and then the 2x job. They would start and finish in the order 6x, 4x, 2x.

• In the Fair queue, the 6x job would start, then the 4x job, and then the 2x job. All three would run concurrently, with each using 1/3 of the available application resources. They would typically finish in the following order: 2x, 4x, 6x.

Ad Hoc Plus Batch Example

In this example, a job using 10x the queue resources is running. After the job is halfway complete, the same user starts a second job needing 1x the queue resources.

• In the FIFO queue, the 10x job will run until it no longer uses all queue resources (map phase complete, for example), and then the 1x job will start.

• In the Fair queue, the 1x job will start, run, and complete as soon as possible – picking up resources from the 10x job by attrition.