In 2005 Li et al. gave a phi-competitive deterministic online algorithm for scheduling of packets with agreeable deadlines with a very interesting analysis. This is known to be optimal due to a lower bound by Hajek. We claim that the algorithm by Li et al. can be slightly simplified, while retaining its competitive ratio. Then we introduce randomness to the modified algorithm and argue that the competitive ratio against oblivious adversary is at most 4/3. Note that this still leaves a gap between the best known lower bound of 5/4 by Chin et al. for randomised algorithms against oblivious adversary.
We consider the problem of scheduling on a single processor a given set of n jobs. Each job j has a workload w_j and a release time r_j. The processor can vary its speed and hibernate to reduce energy consumption. In a schedule minimizing overall consumed energy, it might be that some jobs complete arbitrarily far from their release time. So in order to guarantee some quality of service, we would like to impose a deadline d_j=r_j+F for every job j, where F is a guarantee on the *flow time*. We provide an O(n^3) algorithm for the more general case of *agreeable deadlines*, where jobs have relea…
Motivated by providing quality-of-service differentiated services in the Internet, we consider buffer management algorithms for network switches. We study a multi-buffer model. A network switch consists of multiple size-bounded buffers such that at any time, the number of packets residing in each individual buffer cannot exceed its capacity. Packets arrive at the network switch over time; they have values, deadlines, and designated buffers. In each time step, at most one pending packet is allowed to be sent and this packet can be from any buffer. The objective is to maximize the total value of…
Motivated by the Quality-of-Service (QoS) buffer management problem, we consider online scheduling of packets with hard deadlines in a finite capacity queue. At any time, a queue can store at most $b \in \mathbb Z^+$ packets. Packets arrive over time. Each packet is associated with a non-negative value and an integer deadline. In each time step, only one packet is allowed to be sent. Our objective is to maximize the total value gained by the packets sent by their deadlines in an online manner. Due to the Internet traffic's chaotic characteristics, no stochastic assumptions are made on the pack…
We consider scheduling of colored packets with transition costs which form a general metric space. We design a $1 - O(\sqrt{MST(G) / L})$ competitive algorithm. Our main result is a hardness result of $1 - Ω(\sqrt{MST(G) / L})$ which matches the competitive ratio of the algorithm for each metric space separately. In particular, we improve the hardness result of Azar at el. 2009 for uniform metric spaces. We also extend our result to weighted directed graphs which obey the triangular inequality and show a $1 - O(\sqrt{TSP(G) / L})$ competitive algorithm and a nearly-matching hardness result. In…
We consider algorithms to schedule packets with values and deadlines in a size-bounded buffer. At any time, the buffer can store at most B packets. Packets arrive over time. Each packet has a non-negative value and an integer deadline. In each time step, at most one packet can be sent. Packets can be dropped at any time before they are sent. The objective is to maximize the total value gained by delivering packets no later than their respective deadlines. This model generalizes the well-studied bounded-delay model (Hajek. CISS 2001. Kesselman et al. STOC 2001). We first provide an optimal offl…
The problem of online packet scheduling to minimize the required conventional grid energy for transmitting a fixed number of packets given a common deadline is considered. The total number of packets arriving within the deadline is known, but the packet arrival times are unknown, and can be arbitrary. The proposed algorithm tries to finish the transmission of each packet assuming all future packets are going to arrive at equal time intervals within the left-over time. The proposed online algorithm is shown to have competitive ratio that is logarithmic in the number of packet arrivals. The hybr…
We consider the online resource minimization problem in which jobs with hard deadlines arrive online over time at their release dates. The task is to determine a feasible schedule on a minimum number of machines. We rigorously study this problem and derive various algorithms with small constant competitive ratios for interesting restricted problem variants. As the most important special case, we consider scheduling jobs with agreeable deadlines. We provide the first constant ratio competitive algorithm for the non-preemptive setting, which is of particular interest with regard to the known str…
We study the \emph{bounded-delay model} for Qualify-of-Service buffer management. Time is discrete. There is a buffer. Unit-length jobs (also called \emph{packets}) arrive at the buffer over time. Each packet has an integer release time, an integer deadline, and a positive real value. A packet's characteristics are not known to an online algorithm until the packet actually arrives. In each time step, at most one packet can be sent out of the buffer. The objective is to maximize the total value of the packets sent by their respective deadlines in an online manner. An online algorithm's performa…
In the bounded delay buffer management problem unit size packets arrive online to be sent over a network link. The objective is to maximize the total weight of packets sent before their deadline. In this paper we are interested in the two-valued variant of the problem, where every packet has either low (1) or high priority weight ($α$ > 1). We show that its randomized competitive ratio against an oblivious adversary is 1 + ($α$ -- 1)/($α$ 2 + $α$).
We study the problem of buffer management in QoS-enabled network switches in the bounded delay model where each packet is associated with a weight and a deadline. We consider the more realistic situation where the network switch has a finite buffer size. A 9.82-competitive algorithm is known for the case of multiple buffers (Azar and Levy, SWAT'06). Recently, for the case of a single buffer, a 3-competitive deterministic algorithm and a 2.618-competitive randomized algorithm was known (Li, INFOCOM'09). In this paper we give a simple deterministic 2-competitive algorithm for the case of a singl…
We consider an online scheduling problem, motivated by the issues present at the joints of networks using ATM and TCP/IP. Namely, IP packets have to broken down to small ATM cells and sent out before their deadlines, but cells corresponding to different packets can be interwoven. More formally, we consider the online scheduling problem with preemptions, where each job j is revealed at release time r_j, has processing time p_j, deadline d_j and weight w_j. A preempted job can be resumed at any time. The goal is to maximize the total weight of all jobs completed on time. Our main result are as f…
The bounded delay buffer management problem, which was proposed by Kesselman et~al.\ (STOC 2001 and SIAM Journal on Computing 33(3), 2004), is an online problem focusing on buffer management of a switch supporting Quality of Service (QoS). The problem definition is as follows: Packets arrive to a buffer over time and each packet is specified by the {\em release time}, {\em deadline} and {\em value}. An algorithm can transmit at most one packet from the buffer at each integer time and can gain its value as the {\em profit} if transmitting a packet by its deadline after its release time. The obj…
Online Flexible Busy Time Scheduling on Heterogeneous Machines
Research Institute of the University of Bucharest（布加勒斯特大学研究所）；Northwestern University（西北大学）；Illinois Institute of Technology（伊利诺伊理工学院）；Department of EECS and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, UC Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校电气工程和计算机科学系及西蒙斯理论计算研究所）；Department of Computer Science, Northwestern University（西北大学计算机科学系）；Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University（哈佛大学保罗森工程与应用科学学院）
We consider online scheduling weighted packets with time constraints over a fading channel. Packets arrive at the transmitter in an online manner. Each packet has a value and a deadline by which it should be sent. The fade state of the channel determines the throughput obtained per unit of time and the channel's quality may change over time. In this paper, we design online algorithms to maximize weighted throughput, defined as the total value of the packets sent by their respective deadlines. Competitive ratio is employed to measure an online algorithm's performance. For this problem and one o…
We consider the online machine minimization problem in which jobs with hard deadlines arrive online over time at their release dates. The task is to determine a feasible schedule on a minimum number of machines. Our main result is a general O(m^2 log m)-competitive algorithm for the preemptive online problem, where m is the optimal number of machines used in an offline solution. This is the first improvement on an O(log (p_max/p_min))-competitive algorithm by Phillips et al. (STOC 1997), which was to date the best known algorithm even when m=2. Our algorithm is O(1)-competitive for any m that …
We present deterministic and randomized algorithms for the problem of online packet routing in grids in the competitive network throughput model \cite{AKOR}. In this model the network has nodes with bounded buffers and bounded link capacities. The goal in this model is to maximize the throughput, i.e., the number of delivered packets. Our deterministic algorithm is the first online algorithm with an $O\left(\log^{O(1)}(n)\right)$ competitive ratio for uni-directional grids (where $n$ denotes the size of the network). The deterministic online algorithm is centralized and handles packets with de…
We study the online bounded-delay packet scheduling problem (BDPS), where packets of unit size arrive at a router over time and need to be transmitted over a network link. Each packet has two attributes: a non-negative weight and a deadline for its transmission. The objective is to maximize the total weight of the transmitted packets. This problem has been well studied in the literature, yet its optimal competitive ratio remains unknown: the best upper bound is $1.828$, still quite far from the best lower bound of $ϕ\approx 1.618$. In the variant of BDPS with $s$-bounded instances, each packet…
We give a memoryless scale-invariant randomized algorithm for the Buffer Management with Bounded Delay problem that is e/(e-1)-competitive against an adaptive adversary, together with better performance guarantees for many restricted variants, including the s-bounded instances. In particular, our algorithm attains the optimum competitive ratio of 4/3 on 2-bounded instances. Both the algorithm and its analysis are applicable to a more general problem, called Collecting Items, in which only the relative order between packets' deadlines is known. Our algorithm is the optimal randomized memoryless…
