Job Priorities

In addition to the four policies for mediating among all jobs, the grid engine software sometimes lets users set priorities among their own jobs. A user who submits several jobs can specify, for example, that job 3 is the most important and that jobs 1 and 2 are equally important but less important than job 3.

Priorities for jobs are set by using the QMON Submit Job parameter Priority or by using the qsub -p option. A priority range of -1024 (lowest) to 1023 (highest) can be given. This priority tells the scheduler how to choose among a single user's jobs when several of that user's jobs are in the system simultaneously. The relative importance assigned to a particular job depends on the maximum and minimum priorities that are given to any of that user's jobs, and on the priority value of the specific job.