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Strategic Scheduling Games: Equilibria and Efficiency

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Part of the book series: Springer Optimization and Its Applications ((SOIA,volume 60))

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Abstract

Motivated by today’s decentralized operation of interconnected computing platforms, classical task scheduling models are revisited under a game theoretic perspective. Instead of being designed by a central entity which aims at optimizing an aggregate efficiency measure, task allocations emerge through aggregated localized decisions taken by a group of autonomous self-interested agents. The outcome is sought as an equilibrium whose overall social efficiency typically diverges from the optimal group’s choice. This divergence, captured by a measure that came to be known as the Price of Anarchy, can be alleviated by local scheduling policies called Coordination Mechanisms. This chapter reviews standard task scheduling models, dedicated coordination mechanisms and their influence on the price of anarchy. It also exemplifies the design and analysis of coordination mechanisms on a particular scheduling model with setup times, and discusses open research questions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    If k < n, then remove every job of index i > k. It is not difficult to see that s remains a Nash equilibrium with the same makespan. At the same time, C(s  ∗ ) cannot increase.

  2. 2.

    For example the set of application environments installed on each machine.

  3. 3.

    j incurs processing load w(t j ) + ℓ j if a t j -type job is not already assigned to i.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by French National Agency (ANR), project COCA ANR-09-JCJC-0066-01. This work was carried out during the tenure of an ERCIM “Alain Benssousan” Fellowship Program of Orestis A. Telelis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LAMSADE, CNRS FRE 3234, Université de Paris-Dauphine, 75775, Paris, France

    Laurent Gourvès & Jérôme Monnot

  2. Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Orestis A. Telelis

Authors
  1. Laurent Gourvès
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  2. Jérôme Monnot
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  3. Orestis A. Telelis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laurent Gourvès .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Graduate Program in Systems Engineering, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolás de los Garza, 66450, Nuevo León, Mexico

    Roger Z. Ríos-Mercado

  2. , Graduate Program in Systems Engineering, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolás de los Garza, 66450, Nuevo León, Mexico

    Yasmín A. Ríos-Solís

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Gourvès, L., Monnot, J., Telelis, O.A. (2012). Strategic Scheduling Games: Equilibria and Efficiency. In: Ríos-Mercado, R., Ríos-Solís, Y. (eds) Just-in-Time Systems. Springer Optimization and Its Applications(), vol 60. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1123-9_10

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