Distributed routing for load balancing

Abstract

This paper discusses some open-loop and closed-loop control algorithms for an example of a discreteevent system, viz. the routing of arriving tasks from different arrival streams among several possible service stations. We show that it is possible to design open-loop policies that give good performance in a way which is very robust with respect to large changes in the arrival rates. This is possible even though we assume that there is no on-line coordination between the routing algorithms for the different arrival streams. Some further improvements of the performance are possible when a simple feedback policy -overflow routing -is implemented. This also gives reasonable robustness of the performance with respect to changes in the service rates. Several different analysis techniques are needed to obtain the analytical and numerical solutions necessary to compare the performance of the different policies. (1985 Revision): 93E20, 90822, 68C15. Mathematics Subject Classification

Balanced sequences and optimal routing

“…Load balancing in a distributed multiprocessor computer system has become an important issue to improve their performance. Many papers have been devoted to the load balancing problem, and for an overview, we refer to Boel and Van Schuppen [1989] and Hariharan et al [1990]. Let us assume there is a centralized controller, and the information available to the controller determines the type of control which can be used.…”

Control of Distributed Systems: Tutorial and Overview

“…Desoer studied a string of cars with directed nearest neighbor structure on an automated highway in the early 1990's. Coordinated load balancing was studied in [6]. Control of Gaussian NNL distributed systems is discussed next.…”

Optimization of static traffic allocation policies

“…An overview of load balancing policies and their performances is also given by Boe! and van Schuppen [4]. They consider the problem from a control point of view and discuss the question as to what amount of information is required at the routing points to achieve good system performance.…”