Robust Online Speed Scaling With Deadline Uncertainty

A speed scaling problem is considered, where time is divided into slots, and jobs with payoff v arrive at the beginning of the slot with associated deadlines d. Each job takes one slot to be processed, and multiple jobs can be processed by the server in each slot with energy cost g(k) for processing k jobs in one slot. The payoff is accrued by the algorithm only if the job is processed by its deadline. We consider a robust version of this speed scaling problem, where a job on its arrival reveals its payoff v, however, the deadline is hidden to the online algorithm, which could potentially be chosen adversarially and known to the optimal offline algorithm. The objective is to derive a robust (to deadlines) and optimal online algorithm that achieves the best competitive ratio. We propose an algorithm (called min-LCR) and show that it is an optimal online algorithm for any convex energy cost function g(.). We do so without actually evaluating the optimal competitive ratio, and give a general proof that works for any convex g, which is rather novel. For the popular choice of energy cost function g(k) = k^alpha, alpha >= 2, we give concrete bounds on the competitive ratio of the algorithm, which ranges between 2.618 and 3 depending on the value of alpha. The best known online algorithm for the same problem, but where deadlines are revealed to the online algorithm has competitive ratio of 2 and a lower bound of sqrt{2}. Thus, importantly, lack of deadline knowledge does not make the problem degenerate, and the effect of deadline information on the optimal competitive ratio is limited

Fuzzy Feedback Scheduling of Resource-Constrained Embedded Control Systems

The quality of control (QoC) of a resource-constrained embedded control system may be jeopardized in dynamic environments with variable workload. This gives rise to the increasing demand of co-design of control and scheduling. To deal with uncertainties in resource availability, a fuzzy feedback scheduling (FFS) scheme is proposed in this paper. Within the framework of feedback scheduling, the sampling periods of control loops are dynamically adjusted using the fuzzy control technique. The feedback scheduler provides QoC guarantees in dynamic environments through maintaining the CPU utilization at a desired level. The framework and design methodology of the proposed FFS scheme are described in detail. A simplified mobile robot target tracking system is investigated as a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FFS scheme. The scheme is independent of task execution times, robust to measurement noises, and easy to implement, while incurring only a small overhead.Comment: To appear in International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Contro

Dynamic control of NFV forwarding graphs with end-to-end deadline constraints

There is a strong industrial drive to use cloud computing technologies and concepts for providing timing sensitive services in the networking domain since it would provide the means to share the physical resources among multiple users and thus increase the elasticity and reduce the costs. In this work, we develop a mathematical model for user-stateless virtual network functions forming a forwarding graph. The model captures uncertainties of the performance of these virtual resources as well as the time-overhead needed to instantiate them. The model is used to derive a service controller for horizontal scaling of the virtual resources as well as an admission controller that guarantees that packets exiting the forwarding graph meet their end-to-end deadline. The Automatic Service and Admission Controller (AutoSAC) developed in this work uses feedback and feedforward making it robust against uncertainties of the underlying infrastructure. Also, it has a fast reaction time to changes in the input