Online and Offline Algorithms for Circuit Switch Scheduling

Motivated by the use of high speed circuit switches in large scale data centers, we consider the problem of circuit switch scheduling. In this problem we are given demands between pairs of servers and the goal is to schedule at every time step a matching between the servers while maximizing the total satisfied demand over time. The crux of this scheduling problem is that once one shifts from one matching to a different one a fixed delay delta is incurred during which no data can be transmitted. For the offline version of the problem we present a (1-(1/e)-epsilon) approximation ratio (for any constant epsilon >0). Since the natural linear programming relaxation for the problem has an unbounded integrality gap, we adopt a hybrid approach that combines the combinatorial greedy with randomized rounding of a different suitable linear program. For the online version of the problem we present a (bi-criteria) ((e-1)/(2e-1)-epsilon)-competitive ratio (for any constant epsilon >0 ) that exceeds time by an additive factor of O(delta/epsilon). We note that no uni-criteria online algorithm is possible. Surprisingly, we obtain the result by reducing the online version to the offline one

Design and Analysis of Low Complexity Network Coding Schemes

In classical network information theory, information packets are treated as commodities, and the nodes of the network are only allowed to duplicate and forward the packets. The new paradigm of network coding, which was introduced by Ahlswede et al., states that if the nodes are permitted to combine the information packets and forward a function of them, the throughput of the network can dramatically increase. In this dissertation we focused on the design and analysis of low complexity network coding schemes for different topologies of wired and wireless networks. In the first part we studied the routing capacity of wired networks. We provided a description of the routing capacity region in terms of a finite set of linear inequalities. We next used this result to study the routing capacity region of undirected ring networks for two multimessage scenarios. Finally, we used new network coding bounds to prove the optimality of routing schemes in these two scenarios. In the second part, we studied node-constrained line and star networks. We derived the multiple multicast capacity region of node-constrained line networks based on a low complexity binary linear coding scheme. For star networks, we examined the multiple unicast problem and offered a linear coding scheme. Then we made a connection between the network coding in a node-constrained star network and the problem of index coding with side information. In the third part, we studied the linear deterministic model of relay networks (LDRN). We focused on a unicast session and derived a simple capacity-achieving transmission scheme. We obtained our scheme by a connection to the submodular flow problem through the application of tools from matroid theory and submodular optimization theory. We also offered polynomial-time algorithms for calculating the capacity of the network and the optimal coding scheme. In the final part, we considered the multicasting problem in an LDRN and proposed a new way to construct a coding scheme. Our construction is based on the notion of flow for a unicast session in the third part of this dissertation. We presented randomized and deterministic polynomial-time versions of our algorithm

Optimal WDM Schedules for Optical Star Networks

We consider single-hop wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) networks in which the transmitters take a non-zero amount of time, called tuning latency, to tune from one wavelength to another. For such networks, we show that, under certain conditions on the traffic matrix, there exist polynomial-time algorithms that produce the optimal schedule. Further, the tuning latency is masked in the length of the optimal schedule. Using Chernoff-Hoeffding bounds, we show that the condition on the traffic matrix is satisfied with high probability when the wavelength reuse factor is large, i.e., the number of nodes is large compared to the number of wavelengths. Simulation results show the dramatic improvement in the performance of the network using our algorithm as compared with other heuristics. Research supported by an NSF CAREER Award NCR 1 Introduction Possible bandwidths of the order of terabits per second make optical fiber an attractive choice for high-speed communications [9]. Many sch..