MultiQueues: Simpler, Faster, and Better Relaxed Concurrent Priority Queues

Abstract

Priority queues with parallel access are an attractive data structure for applications like prioritized online scheduling, discrete event simulation, or branch-and-bound. However, a classical priority queue constitutes a severe bottleneck in this context, leading to very small throughput. Hence, there has been significant interest in concurrent priority queues with a somewhat relaxed semantics where deleted elements only need to be close to the minimum. In this paper we present a very simple approach based on multiple sequential priority queues. It turns out to outperform previous more complicated data structures while at the same time improving the quality of the returned elements.