Abstract: A technique includes receiving a request to process a job on a cluster. The job includes a plurality of ranks, the cluster includes a plurality of nodes, and the plurality of ranks can be equally divided among a minimal subset of nodes of the plurality of nodes such that all processing cores and the minimal set of nodes correspond to the plurality of ranks. The technique includes, in response to the request, scheduling processing of the job. The scheduling of the processing of the job includes distributing processing of the plurality of ranks across a set of nodes of the plurality of nodes greater in number than the minimal subset of nodes.