The overall efficiency of a scheduling system is defined by two factors:
- Communication costs, in the exchange of load estimation messages,
synchronisation of processes, negotiation messages, process transfer, and
increased interprocess communication costs.
- Processor cost, for measuring current load, extracting and marshaling
data.
It is not easy to say which is the more significant cost; to a large extent it
depends on the particular workstations and networks involved, and their
utilisations.