20 research outputs found
Walking Through Waypoints
We initiate the study of a fundamental combinatorial problem: Given a
capacitated graph , find a shortest walk ("route") from a source to a destination that includes all vertices specified by a set
: the \emph{waypoints}. This waypoint routing problem
finds immediate applications in the context of modern networked distributed
systems. Our main contribution is an exact polynomial-time algorithm for graphs
of bounded treewidth. We also show that if the number of waypoints is
logarithmically bounded, exact polynomial-time algorithms exist even for
general graphs. Our two algorithms provide an almost complete characterization
of what can be solved exactly in polynomial-time: we show that more general
problems (e.g., on grid graphs of maximum degree 3, with slightly more
waypoints) are computationally intractable
Distributed Dominating Set Approximations beyond Planar Graphs
The Minimum Dominating Set (MDS) problem is one of the most fundamental and
challenging problems in distributed computing. While it is well-known that
minimum dominating sets cannot be approximated locally on general graphs, over
the last years, there has been much progress on computing local approximations
on sparse graphs, and in particular planar graphs.
In this paper we study distributed and deterministic MDS approximation
algorithms for graph classes beyond planar graphs. In particular, we show that
existing approximation bounds for planar graphs can be lifted to bounded genus
graphs, and present (1) a local constant-time, constant-factor MDS
approximation algorithm and (2) a local -time
approximation scheme. Our main technical contribution is a new analysis of a
slightly modified variant of an existing algorithm by Lenzen et al.
Interestingly, unlike existing proofs for planar graphs, our analysis does not
rely on direct topological arguments.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1602.0299
Distributed distance-r covering problems on sparse high-girth graphs
We prove that the distance-r dominating set, distance-r connected dominating set,
distance-r vertex cover, and distance-r connected vertex cover problems admit constant
factor approximations in the CONGEST model of distributed computing in a constant
number of rounds on classes of sparse high-girth graphs. In this paper, sparse means
bounded expansion, and high-girth means girth at least 4r + 2. Our algorithm is quite
simple; however, the proof of its approximation guarantee is non-trivial. To complement
the algorithmic results, we show tightness of our approximation by providing a loosely
matching lower bound on rings.
Our result is the first to show the existence of constant-factor approximations in a constant
number of rounds in non-trivial classes of graphs for distance-r covering problems
Transiently Consistent SDN Updates: Being Greedy is Hard
The software-defined networking paradigm introduces interesting opportunities
to operate networks in a more flexible, optimized, yet formally verifiable
manner. Despite the logically centralized control, however, a Software-Defined
Network (SDN) is still a distributed system, with inherent delays between the
switches and the controller. Especially the problem of changing network
configurations in a consistent manner, also known as the consistent network
update problem, has received much attention over the last years. In particular,
it has been shown that there exists an inherent tradeoff between update
consistency and speed. This paper revisits the problem of updating an SDN in a
transiently consistent, loop-free manner. First, we rigorously prove that
computing a maximum (greedy) loop-free network update is generally NP-hard;
this result has implications for the classic maximum acyclic subgraph problem
(the dual feedback arc set problem) as well. Second, we show that for special
problem instances, fast and good approximation algorithms exist