The K-server problem via a modern optimization lens

We consider the well-known K-server problem from the perspective of mixed integer, robust and adaptive optimization. We propose a new tractable mixed integer linear formulation of the K-server problem that incorporates both information from the past and uncertainty about the future. By combining ide...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bertsimas, Dimitris J, Jaillet, Patrick, Korolko, Nikita (Nikita E.)
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier BV 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129340
Description
Summary:We consider the well-known K-server problem from the perspective of mixed integer, robust and adaptive optimization. We propose a new tractable mixed integer linear formulation of the K-server problem that incorporates both information from the past and uncertainty about the future. By combining ideas from classical online algorithms developed in the computer science literature and robust and adaptive optimization developed in the operations research literature we propose a new method that (a) is computationally tractable, (b) almost always outperforms all other methods in numerical experiments, and (c) is stable with respect to potential errors in the assumptions about the future.