Scheduling Multipacket Frames with Frame Deadlines

Lukasz Jez, Yishay Mansour, Boaz Patt-Shamir

Abstract: We consider scheduling information units called frames, each with a delivery deadline. Frames consist of packets, which arrive on-line in a roughly-periodic fashion, and compete on allocation of transmission slots. A frame is deemed useful only if all its packets are delivered before its deadline. Using standard techniques, one can derive polylog-competitive algorithms for this model; in this paper we study special cases which allow for better results. Specifically, we present constant-competitive algorithms for two important cases: in one, the value of a frame is proportional to its size and all frames have (roughly) the same period, and in the other, each frame may have its own period but all frames have the same value and size. The former result also implies better polylog-competitive algorithm for the general case.