Anti-Clustering Ant-Based Load Balancing in Distributed Systems

Large-scale distributed computing systems form the backbone of cloud, grid, fog, and IoT systems, where applications are divided into tasks distributed across compute nodes. The performance and resource utilization of these systems depend heavily on task distribution. Thus, an effective load balancing algorithm for optimal task allocation across compute nodes is essential. In this paper, we address the problem of load balancing in distributed systems composed of compute nodes interconnected in a graph-like network. We solve this problem by proposing a new algorithm inspired by the object clustering behavior of ants, but applied in reverse, hence the name ’anti-clustering’. This is a distributed, simple task allocation algorithm, requiring minimal memory for each artificial ant and a basic probabilistic rule for task allocation. Simulation results across various network topologies, task numbers, and transfer times show that our algorithm outperforms a conventional diffusion-based load balancing algorithm.