196 research outputs found
Simple and explicit bounds for multi-server queues with (and sometimes better) scaling
We consider the FCFS queue, and prove the first simple and explicit
bounds that scale as (and sometimes better). Here
denotes the corresponding traffic intensity. Conceptually, our results can be
viewed as a multi-server analogue of Kingman's bound. Our main results are
bounds for the tail of the steady-state queue length and the steady-state
probability of delay. The strength of our bounds (e.g. in the form of tail
decay rate) is a function of how many moments of the inter-arrival and service
distributions are assumed finite. More formally, suppose that the inter-arrival
and service times (distributed as random variables and respectively)
have finite th moment for some Let (respectively )
denote (respectively ). Then
our bounds (also for higher moments) are simple and explicit functions of
, and
only. Our bounds scale gracefully even when the number of
servers grows large and the traffic intensity converges to unity
simultaneously, as in the Halfin-Whitt scaling regime. Some of our bounds scale
better than in certain asymptotic regimes. More precisely,
they scale as multiplied by an inverse polynomial in These results formalize the intuition that bounds should be tighter
in light traffic as well as certain heavy-traffic regimes (e.g. with
fixed and large). In these same asymptotic regimes we also prove bounds for
the tail of the steady-state number in service.
Our main proofs proceed by explicitly analyzing the bounding process which
arises in the stochastic comparison bounds of amarnik and Goldberg for
multi-server queues. Along the way we derive several novel results for suprema
of random walks and pooled renewal processes which may be of independent
interest. We also prove several additional bounds using drift arguments (which
have much smaller pre-factors), and make several conjectures which would imply
further related bounds and generalizations
Asymptotically optimal load balancing in large-scale heterogeneous systems with multiple dispatchers
We consider the load balancing problem in large-scale heterogeneous systems with multiple dispatchers. We introduce a general framework called Local-Estimation-Driven (LED). Under this framework, each dispatcher keeps local (possibly outdated) estimates of the queue lengths for all the servers, and the dispatching decision is made purely based on these local estimates. The local estimates are updated via infrequent communications between dispatchers and servers. We derive sufficient conditions for LED policies to achieve throughput optimality and delay optimality in heavy-traffic, respectively. These conditions directly imply delay optimality for many previous local-memory based policies in heavy traffic. Moreover, the results enable us to design new delay optimal policies for heterogeneous systems with multiple dispatchers. Finally, the heavy-traffic delay optimality of the LED framework also sheds light on a recent open question on how to design optimal load balancing schemes using delayed information
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