New Bounds for the Controller Problem

The (M, W)-controller, originally studied by Afek, Awerbuch, Plotkin, and Saks, is a basic ted tool that provides an abstraction for managing the consumption of a global resource in a distributed dynamic network. The input to the controller arrives online in the form of requests presented at arbitrary nodes. A request presented at node u corresponds to the “desire” of some entity to consume one unit of the global resource at u and the controller should handle this request within finite time by either granting it with a permit or denying it. Initially, M permits (corresponding to M units of the global resource) are stored at a designated root node. Throughout the execution permits can be transported from place to place along the network’s links so that they can be granted to requests presented at various nodes; when a permit is granted to some request, it is eliminated from the network. The fundamental rule of an (M, W)-controller is that a request should not be denied unless it...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: WDAG
• Authors: Yuval Emek, Amos Korman
• Keywords: Algorithms, Dynamic Network, Global Resource, Lower Bound, WDAG 2009