789 research outputs found
Simpler and Better Algorithms for Minimum-Norm Load Balancing
Recently, Chakrabarty and Swamy (STOC 2019) introduced the minimum-norm load-balancing problem on unrelated machines, wherein we are given a set J of jobs that need to be scheduled on a set of m unrelated machines, and a monotone, symmetric norm; We seek an assignment sigma: J -> [m] that minimizes the norm of the resulting load vector load_{sigma} in R_+^m, where load_{sigma}(i) is the load on machine i under the assignment sigma. Besides capturing all l_p norms, symmetric norms also capture other norms of interest including top-l norms, and ordered norms. Chakrabarty and Swamy (STOC 2019) give a (38+epsilon)-approximation algorithm for this problem via a general framework they develop for minimum-norm optimization that proceeds by first carefully reducing this problem (in a series of steps) to a problem called min-max ordered load balancing, and then devising a so-called deterministic oblivious LP-rounding algorithm for ordered load balancing.
We give a direct, and simple 4+epsilon-approximation algorithm for the minimum-norm load balancing based on rounding a (near-optimal) solution to a novel convex-programming relaxation for the problem. Whereas the natural convex program encoding minimum-norm load balancing problem has a large non-constant integrality gap, we show that this issue can be remedied by including a key constraint that bounds the "norm of the job-cost vector." Our techniques also yield a (essentially) 4-approximation for: (a) multi-norm load balancing, wherein we are given multiple monotone symmetric norms, and we seek an assignment respecting a given budget for each norm; (b) the best simultaneous approximation factor achievable for all symmetric norms for a given instance
Lift-and-Round to Improve Weighted Completion Time on Unrelated Machines
We consider the problem of scheduling jobs on unrelated machines so as to
minimize the sum of weighted completion times. Our main result is a
-approximation algorithm for some fixed , improving upon the
long-standing bound of 3/2 (independently due to Skutella, Journal of the ACM,
2001, and Sethuraman & Squillante, SODA, 1999). To do this, we first introduce
a new lift-and-project based SDP relaxation for the problem. This is necessary
as the previous convex programming relaxations have an integrality gap of
. Second, we give a new general bipartite-rounding procedure that produces
an assignment with certain strong negative correlation properties.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure
New bounds for truthful scheduling on two unrelated selfish machines
We consider the minimum makespan problem for tasks and two unrelated
parallel selfish machines. Let be the best approximation ratio of
randomized monotone scale-free algorithms. This class contains the most
efficient algorithms known for truthful scheduling on two machines. We propose
a new formulation for , as well as upper and lower bounds on
based on this formulation. For the lower bound, we exploit pointwise
approximations of cumulative distribution functions (CDFs). For the upper
bound, we construct randomized algorithms using distributions with piecewise
rational CDFs. Our method improves upon the existing bounds on for small
. In particular, we obtain almost tight bounds for showing that
.Comment: 28 pages, 3 tables, 1 figure. Theory Comput Syst (2019
Better Unrelated Machine Scheduling for Weighted Completion Time via Random Offsets from Non-Uniform Distributions
In this paper we consider the classic scheduling problem of minimizing total
weighted completion time on unrelated machines when jobs have release times,
i.e, using the three-field notation. For this
problem, a 2-approximation is known based on a novel convex programming (J. ACM
2001 by Skutella). It has been a long standing open problem if one can improve
upon this 2-approximation (Open Problem 8 in J. of Sched. 1999 by Schuurman and
Woeginger). We answer this question in the affirmative by giving a
1.8786-approximation. We achieve this via a surprisingly simple linear
programming, but a novel rounding algorithm and analysis. A key ingredient of
our algorithm is the use of random offsets sampled from non-uniform
distributions.
We also consider the preemptive version of the problem, i.e, . We again use the idea of sampling offsets from non-uniform
distributions to give the first better than 2-approximation for this problem.
This improvement also requires use of a configuration LP with variables for
each job's complete schedules along with more careful analysis. For both
non-preemptive and preemptive versions, we break the approximation barrier of 2
for the first time.Comment: 24 pages. To apper in FOCS 201
Scheduling to Minimize Total Weighted Completion Time via Time-Indexed Linear Programming Relaxations
We study approximation algorithms for scheduling problems with the objective
of minimizing total weighted completion time, under identical and related
machine models with job precedence constraints. We give algorithms that improve
upon many previous 15 to 20-year-old state-of-art results. A major theme in
these results is the use of time-indexed linear programming relaxations. These
are natural relaxations for their respective problems, but surprisingly are not
studied in the literature.
We also consider the scheduling problem of minimizing total weighted
completion time on unrelated machines. The recent breakthrough result of
[Bansal-Srinivasan-Svensson, STOC 2016] gave a -approximation for the
problem, based on some lift-and-project SDP relaxation. Our main result is that
a -approximation can also be achieved using a natural and
considerably simpler time-indexed LP relaxation for the problem. We hope this
relaxation can provide new insights into the problem
Bi-Criteria Approximation Algorithms for Load Balancing on Unrelated Machines with Costs
We study a generalized version of the load balancing problem on unrelated machines with cost constraints: Given a set of m machines (of certain types) and a set of n jobs, each job j processed on machine i requires p_{i,j} time units and incurs a cost c_{i,j}, and the goal is to find a schedule of jobs to machines, which is defined as an ordered partition of n jobs into m disjoint subsets, in such a way that some objective function of the vector of the completion times of the machines is optimized, subject to the constraint that the total costs by the schedule must be within a given budget B. Motivated by recent results from the literature, our focus is on the case when the number of machine types is a fixed constant and we develop a bi-criteria approximation scheme for the studied problem. Our result generalizes several known results for certain special cases, such as the case with identical machines, or the case with a constant number of machines with cost constraints. Building on the elegant technique recently proposed by Jansen and Maack [K. Jansen and M. Maack, 2019], we construct a more general approach that can be used to derive approximation schemes to a wider class of load balancing problems with constraints
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