DOPPLER: Dual-Policy Learning for Device Assignment in Asynchronous Dataflow Graphs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yao, Xinyu, Bourgeois, Daniel, Jain, Abhinav, Tang, Yuxin, Yao, Jiawen, Ding, Zhimin, Silva, Arlei, Jermaine, Chris
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yao, Xinyu
Bourgeois, Daniel
Jain, Abhinav
Tang, Yuxin
Yao, Jiawen
Ding, Zhimin
Silva, Arlei
Jermaine, Chris
author_facet Yao, Xinyu
Bourgeois, Daniel
Jain, Abhinav
Tang, Yuxin
Yao, Jiawen
Ding, Zhimin
Silva, Arlei
Jermaine, Chris
contents We study the problem of assigning operations in a dataflow graph to devices to minimize execution time in a work-conserving system, with emphasis on complex machine learning workloads. Prior learning-based methods often struggle due to three key limitations: (1) reliance on bulk-synchronous systems like TensorFlow, which under-utilize devices due to barrier synchronization; (2) lack of awareness of the scheduling mechanism of underlying systems when designing learning-based methods; and (3) exclusive dependence on reinforcement learning, ignoring the structure of effective heuristics designed by experts. In this paper, we propose \textsc{Doppler}, a three-stage framework for training dual-policy networks consisting of 1) a $\mathsf{SEL}$ policy for selecting operations and 2) a $\mathsf{PLC}$ policy for placing chosen operations on devices. Our experiments show that \textsc{Doppler} outperforms all baseline methods across tasks by reducing system execution time and additionally demonstrates sampling efficiency by reducing per-episode training time.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_23131
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DOPPLER: Dual-Policy Learning for Device Assignment in Asynchronous Dataflow Graphs
Yao, Xinyu
Bourgeois, Daniel
Jain, Abhinav
Tang, Yuxin
Yao, Jiawen
Ding, Zhimin
Silva, Arlei
Jermaine, Chris
Machine Learning
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
We study the problem of assigning operations in a dataflow graph to devices to minimize execution time in a work-conserving system, with emphasis on complex machine learning workloads. Prior learning-based methods often struggle due to three key limitations: (1) reliance on bulk-synchronous systems like TensorFlow, which under-utilize devices due to barrier synchronization; (2) lack of awareness of the scheduling mechanism of underlying systems when designing learning-based methods; and (3) exclusive dependence on reinforcement learning, ignoring the structure of effective heuristics designed by experts. In this paper, we propose \textsc{Doppler}, a three-stage framework for training dual-policy networks consisting of 1) a $\mathsf{SEL}$ policy for selecting operations and 2) a $\mathsf{PLC}$ policy for placing chosen operations on devices. Our experiments show that \textsc{Doppler} outperforms all baseline methods across tasks by reducing system execution time and additionally demonstrates sampling efficiency by reducing per-episode training time.
title DOPPLER: Dual-Policy Learning for Device Assignment in Asynchronous Dataflow Graphs
topic Machine Learning
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23131