We consider the Windows Scheduling problem. The problem is a restricted
version of Unit-Fractions Bin Packing, and it is also called Inventory
Replenishment in the context of Supply Chain. In brief, the problem is to
schedule the use of communication channels to clients. Each client ci is
characterized by an active cycle and a window wi. During the period of time
that any given client ci is active, there must be at least one transmission
from ci scheduled in any wi consecutive time slots, but at most one
transmission can be carried out in each channel per time slot. The goal is to
minimize the number of channels used. We extend previous online models, where
decisions are permanent, assuming that clients may be reallocated at some cost.
We assume that such cost is a constant amount paid per reallocation. That is,
we aim to minimize also the number of reallocations. We present three online
reallocation algorithms for Windows Scheduling. We evaluate experimentally
these protocols showing that, in practice, all three achieve constant amortized
reallocations with close to optimal channel usage. Our simulations also expose
interesting trade-offs between reallocations and channel usage. We introduce a
new objective function for WS with reallocations, that can be also applied to
models where reallocations are not possible. We analyze this metric for one of
the algorithms which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first online WS
protocol with theoretical guarantees that applies to scenarios where clients
may leave and the analysis is against current load rather than peak load. Using
previous results, we also observe bounds on channel usage for one of the
algorithms.Comment: 6 figure
