Optimal Dynamic Server Allocation in Systems with On/Off Sources

摘要

A system consisting of several servers, where demands of different types arrive in bursts, is examined. The servers can be dynamically reallocated to deal with the different requests, but these switches take time and incur a cost. The problem is to find the optimal dynamic allocation policy. To this end a Markov decision process is solved, using two different techniques. The effects of different solution methods and modeling decisions on the resulting solution are examined.