Scalable algorithms for server allocation in infostations

The server allocation problem arises in isolated infostations, where mobile users going through the coverage area require immediate high-bit rate communications such as web surfing, file transferring, voice messaging, email and fax. Given a set of service requests, each characterized by a temporal interval and a category, an integer k, and an integer hc for each category c, the problem consists in assigning a server to each request in such a way that at most k mutually simultaneous requests are assigned to the same server at the same time, out of which at most hc are of category c, and the minimum number of servers is used. Since this problem is computationally intractable, a scalable 2-approximation online algorithm is exhibited. Generalizations of the problem are considered, which contain bin-packing, multiprocessor scheduling, and interval graph coloring as special cases, and admit scalable on-line algorithms providing constant approximations.