ITo motivate this survey, we begin with a simple problem that demonstrates a powerful fundamental idea. Suppose that n balls are thrown into n bins, with each ball choosing a bin independently and uniformly at random. Then the maximum load, or the largest number of balls in any bin, is approximately log n= log log n with high probability. Now suppose instead that the balls are placed sequentially, and each ball is placed in the least loaded of d 2 bins chosen independently and uniformly at random. Azar, Broder, Karlin, and Upfal showed that in this case, the maximum load is log log n= log d + (1) with high probability [ABKU99]. The important implication of this result is that even a small amount of choice can lead to drastically different results in load balancing. Indeed, having just two random choices (i.e.,...

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Many distributed protocols arising in applications in online load balancing and dynamic resource allocation can be modeled by dynamic allocation processes related to the “balls into bin ” problems. Traditionally the main focus of the research on dynamic allocation processes is on verifying whether a given process is stable, and if so, on analyzing its behavior in the limit (i.e., after sufficiently many steps). Once we know that the process is stable and we know its behavior in the limit, it is natural to analyze its recovery time, which is the time needed by the process to recover from any arbitrarily bad situation and to arrive very closely to a stable (i.e., a typical) state. This investigation is important to provide assurance that even if at some stage the process has reached a highly undesirable state, we can predict with high confidence its behavior after the estimated recovery time. In this paper we present a genera / framework to study the recovery time of discrete-time dynamic allocation processes. We model allocation processes by suitably chosen ergodic Markov chains. For a given Markov chain we apply path coupling arguments to bound its convergence rates to the stationary distribution, which directly yields the estimation of the recovery time of the corresponding allocation process. Our coupling approach provides in a relatively simple way an accurate prediction of the recovery time. In particular, we show that our method can be applied to significantly improve estimations of the recovery time for various allocation processes related to allocations of balls into bins, and for the edge orientation problem studied before by Ajtai et al.

In recent years the task of allocating jobs to servers has been studied with the "balls and bins" abstraction. Results in this area exploit the large decrease in maximum load that can be achieved by allowing each job (ball) a very small amount of choice in choosing its destination server (bin). The scenarios considered can be divided into two categories: sequential, where each job can be placed at a server before the next job arrives, and parallel, where the jobs arrive in large batches that must be dealt with simultaneously. Another, orthogonal, classification of load balancing scenarios is into fixed time and infinite. Fixed time processes are only analyzed for an interval of time that is known in advance, and for all such results thus far either the number of rounds or the total expected number of arrivals at each server is a constant. In the infinite case, there is an arrival process and a deletion process that are both defined over an infinite time line. In this pape...

In this paper, we present a simulation environment for storage area networks called SIMLAB. SIMLAB is a part of the PRESTO project, which is a joint project of the Electrical Engineering Department and the Computer Science Department of the Paderborn University. The aim of the PRESTO project is to construct a scalable and resourceefficient storage network that can support the real-time delivery of data. SIMLAB has been implemented to aid the development and verification of distributed algorithms for this storage network. However, it has been designed in such a way that it can also be used for the simulation of many other types of networking problems. SIMLAB is based on C++ and common libraries and input/output formats, which ensures that SIMLAB can be used on many different platforms. We therefore expect SIMLAB to be useful also for other people working on similar problems. 1 Introduction In the last couple of years, a dramatic increase in the need of storing huge amounts of data can...

We explore the fundamental limits of distributed balls-intobins algorithms, i.e., algorithms where balls act in parallel, as separate agents. This problem was introduced by Adler et al., who showed that non-adaptive and symmetric algorithms cannot reliably perform better than a maximum bin load of Θ(loglogn/logloglogn) within the same number of rounds. We present an adaptive symmetric algorithm that achieves a bin load of two in log ∗ n + O(1) communication rounds using O(n) messages in total. Moreover, larger bin loads can be traded in for smaller time complexities. We prove a matching lower bound of (1−o(1))log ∗ n on the time complexity of symmetric algorithms that guarantee small bin loads at an asymptotically optimal message complexity of O(n). The essential preconditions of the proof are (i) a limit of O(n) on the total number of messages sent by the algorithm and (ii) anonymity of bins, i.e., the port numberings of balls are not globally consistent. In order to show that our technique yields indeed tight bounds, we provide for each assumption an algorithm violating it, in turn achieving a constant maximum bin load in constant time. As an application, we consider the following problem. Given a fully connected graph of n nodes, where each node needs to send and receive up to n messages, and in each round each node may send one message over each link, deliver all messages as quickly as possible to their destinations. We give a simple and robust algorithm of time complexity O(log ∗ n) for this task and provide a generalization to the case where all nodes initially hold arbitrary sets of messages. Completing the picture, we give a less practical, but asymptotically optimal algorithm terminating within O(1) rounds. All these bounds hold with high probability.

Multiple-choice allocation algorithms have been studied intensively over the last decade. These algorithms have several applications in the areas of load balancing, routing, resource allocation and hashing. The underlying idea is simple and can be explained best in the balls-and-bins model: Instead of assigning balls (jobs, requests, or keys) simply at random to bins (machines, servers, or positions in a hash table), choose first a small set of bins at random, inspect these bins, and place the ball into one of the bins containing the smallest number of balls among them. The simple idea of first selecting a small set of alternatives at random and then making the final choice after careful inspection of these alternatives leads to great improvements against algorithms that place their decisions simply at random. We illustrate the power of this principle in terms of simple balls-and-bins processes. In particular, we study recently presented algorithms that treat bins asymmetrically in order to obtain a better load balancing. We compare the behavior of these asymmetric schemes with symmetric schemes and prove that the asymmetric schemes achieve a better load balancing than their symmetric counterparts. 1

Introduction A major research area in the University of Paderborn is Parallel Computing. Next to computer scientists, also researchers in mathematics, electrical and machine engineering, and manufacturing technology employ the computation power of parallel and distributed systems. Further, many institutions of our university focus on research related to this topic: the Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing (PC 2 ) offers support for efficient, comfortable use of parallel machines not only to users of the Paderborn or other universities, but also to users in international industries. Parallel computing in the Heinz Nixdorf Institute and its DFG-Graduate College ranges from basic research to applications in manufacturing technology. The C-LAB, a joint venture with Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG, contributes design methodology for complex distributed real time systems. All these activities are supported within numerous projects, by, e.g., DFG, BMBF, EU

Many distributed protocols arising in applications in on-line load balancing and dynamic resource allocation can be modeled by dynamic allocation processes related to the "balls into bin" problems. Traditionally the main focus of the research on dynamic allocation processes is on verifying whether a given process is stable, and if so, on analyzing its behavior in the limit (i.e., after sufficiently many steps). Once we know that the process is stable and we know its behavior in the limit, it is natural to analyze its recovery time, which is the time needed by the process to recover from any arbitrarily bad situation and to arrive very closely to a stable (i.e., a typical) state. This investigation is important to provide assurance that even if at some stage the process has reached a highly undesirabl...