Dynamic load balancing shall optimize the resource utilization in parallel systems and computer networks in order to reduce the application response times. While simple schemes are mathematically tractable and can increase resource utilization for certain applications, while implemented remote execution facilities can avoid cpu overload peaks in computing clusters, load balancing schemes for realistic systems and complex load profiles, especially for database management systems, need to consider data and communication.

This paper explains the problem and potential benefits of dynamic load balancing, emphasizing on the exploitation of data affinities and consideration of communication cost. The sophisticated techniques developed in the HiCon system are presented in detail and validated by several real measurements from parallel and distributed database processing.