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On the Competitive Ratio of the Work Function Algorithm for the k-Server Problem

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STACS 2000 (STACS 2000)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1770))

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Abstract

The k-server problem is one of the most fundamental on-line problems. The problem is to schedule k mobile servers to serve a sequence of service points in a metric space to mimize the total mileage. The k-server conjecture [11] that states that there exists an optimal k-competitive on-line algorithm has been open for over 10 years. The top candidate on-line algorithm for settling this conjecture is the Work Function Algorithm (WFA) which was recently shown [7,9] to have competitive ratio at most 2k−1. In this paper we lend support to the conjecture that wfa is in fact k-competitive by proving that it achieves this ratio in several special metric spaces.

Supported in part by NSF grant CCR-9521606

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bell Labs, USA

    Yair Bartal

  2. Univ of California, Los Angeles

    Elias Koutsoupias

Authors
  1. Yair Bartal
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  2. Elias Koutsoupias
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science, Dept. of Theoretical Computer Science, Universität Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Horst Reichel

  2. Université de Lille, LIFL - UPRESA 8022, CNRS, Bât. M3 - UFR IEEA, 59655, Villeneuve d’ASCQ Cedex, France

    Sophie Tison

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Bartal, Y., Koutsoupias, E. (2000). On the Competitive Ratio of the Work Function Algorithm for the k-Server Problem. In: Reichel, H., Tison, S. (eds) STACS 2000. STACS 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1770. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46541-3_50

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46541-3_50

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-67141-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46541-6

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