The Power Of Limited Flexibility And Resource Pooling

该奖项为开发大型服务系统的数学理论提供资金，这些系统采用灵活的资源来处理一系列不同的传入任务。与分散和不灵活的系统相比，具有完全灵活资源的集中式系统（所谓的完整资源池）通常提供显着的性能改进，其中每个资源专用于特定类型的任务。然而，充分的灵活性通常需要大量的基础设施成本。该项目将侧重于确定和分析有限的灵活性（即，当只有一小部分可用资源是灵活的时）实现了完全灵活性的几乎所有性能益处。特别是，该项目将研究涉及部分柔性和/或部分信息共享的各种数学模型，并进行性能分析，重点是涉及非平凡动态的系统，以及在大型系统的极限下，以推导出标度律。部分柔性有可能在适度的资本和运营成本下实现重大的性能改进，在大量重要的应用领域，如数据中心、服务器场、传感器网络、供应链和医疗人员配备。如果成功的话，这项研究的结果（将通过学术出版物，研讨会和学生培训传播）将提供宝贵的见解和指导，如何架构，设计和有效地操作部分灵活的系统。

This award provides funding for the development of a mathematical theory of large-scale service systems that employ flexible resources in order to process a sequence of diverse incoming tasks. Centralized systems with fully flexible resources (so-called complete resource pooling) generally offer significant performance improvements when compared to decentralized and inflexible systems in which each resource is dedicated to a specific type of tasks. However, full flexibility typically entails a heavy infrastructural cost. The project will focus on identifying and analyzing situations where a limited amount of flexibility (i.e., when only a small fraction of the available resources are flexible) achieves almost all of the performance benefits of full flexibility. In particular, the project will study various mathematical models involving partial flexibility and/or partial information sharing, and carry out a performance analysis, with a focus on systems that involve nontrivial dynamics, and in the limit of large systems, in order to derive scaling laws.Partial flexibility has the potential for major performance improvements, at moderate capital and operating cost, in a vast array of important application domains, such as data centers, server farms, sensor networks, supply chains, and medical staffing. If successful, the results of this research (to be disseminated through scholarly publications, seminars, and the training of students) will provide valuable insights and guidance on how to architect, design, and operate efficiently partially flexible systems.