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arXiv · 1110.1580

A Polylogarithmic-Competitive Algorithm for the k-Server Problem

Nikhil Bansal·Niv Buchbinder·Aleksander Madry·Joseph·Naor
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Abstract

We give the first polylogarithmic-competitive randomized online algorithm for the $k$-server problem on an arbitrary finite metric space. In particular, our algorithm achieves a competitive ratio of O(log^3 n log^2 k log log n) for any metric space on n points. Our algorithm improves upon the deterministic (2k-1)-competitive algorithm of Koutsoupias and Papadimitriou [J.ACM'95] whenever n is sub-exponential in k.

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Nikhil Bansal, Niv Buchbinder, Aleksander Madry, Joseph, Naor. 2011-10-07. A Polylogarithmic-Competitive Algorithm for the k-Server Problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1580

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