There are many papers published at this subject. Google scholar with a search for "system noise" will give you a starting point.
george. On Dec 7, 2009, at 10:13 , Douglas Guptill wrote: >> In most MPI applications if even one task is sharing its CPU with >> other processes, like users doing compiles, the whole job slows down >> too much. > > I have not found that to be the case.
