An important consideration in improving the performance of a distributed
computer system is the balancing of the load between the host computers.
Load balancing may be either static or dynamic; static balancing
strategies are generally based on information about the system's average
behavior rather than its actual current state, while dynamic strategies
react to the current state when making transfer decisions. Although it
is often conjectured that dynamic load balancing outperforms static,
careful investigation shows that this view is not always valid. Recent
research on the problem of optimal static load balancing is clearly and
intuitively presented, with coverage of distributed computer system
models, problem formulation in load balancing, and effective algorithms
for implementing optimization. Providing a thorough understanding of
both static and dynamic strategies, this book will be of interest to all
researchers and practitioners working to optimize performance in
distributed computer systems.