We revisit the classical non-clairvoyant problem of scheduling a set of n jobs on a set of m parallel identical machines where the processing time of a job is not known until the job finishes. Our objective is the minimization of the makespan, i.e., the date at which the last job terminates its execution. We adopt the framework of learning-augmented algorithms and we study the question of whether (possibly erroneous) predictions may help design algorithms with a competitive ratio which is good when the prediction is accurate (consistency), deteriorates gradually with respect to the prediction error (smoothness), and not too bad and bounded when the prediction is arbitrarily bad (robustness). We first consider the non-preemptive case and we devise lower bounds, as a function of the error of the prediction, for any deterministic learning-augmented algorithm. Then we analyze a variant of Longest Processing Time first (LPT) algorithm (with and without release dates) and we prove that it is consistent, smooth, and robust. Furthermore, we study the preemptive case and we provide lower bounds for any deterministic algorithm with predictions as a function of the prediction error. Finally, we introduce a variant of the classical Round Robin algorithm (RR), the Predicted Proportional Round Robin algorithm (PPRR), which we prove to be consistent, smooth and robust.

Using machine-learned predictions to create algorithms with better approximation guarantees is a very fresh and active field. In this work, we study classic scheduling problems under the learning augmented setting. More specifically, we consider the problem of scheduling jobs with arbitrary release dates on a single machine and the problem of scheduling jobs with a common release date on multiple machines. Our objective is to minimize the sum of completion times. For both problems, we propose algorithms which use predictions for taking their decisions. Our algorithms are consistent -- i.e. when the predictions are accurate, the performances of our algorithms are close to those of an optimal offline algorithm--, and robust -- i.e. when the predictions are wrong, the performance of our algorithms are close to those of an online algorithm without predictions. In addition, we confirm the above theoretical bounds by conducting experimental evaluation comparing the proposed algorithms to the offline optimal ones for both the single and multiple machines settings.

In this paper, we introduce a model for the speed scaling setting in the framework of explorable uncertainty. In the model, each job has a release time, a deadline and an unknown workload that can be revealed to the algorithm only after executing a query that induces a given additional job-dependent load. Alternatively, the job may be executed without any query, but in that case its workload is equal to a given upper bound. This assumption is motivated for instance in applications like code optimization, or file compression. We study the problem of minimizing the overall energy consumption for executing all the jobs in their time windows. We also consider the related problem of minimizing the maximum speed used by the algorithm. We present lower and upper bounds for both the offline case, where all the jobs are known in advance, and the online case, where the jobs arrive over time. We start with the single machine setting and we finally deal with the more general case where multiple identical parallel machines are available.

Bleuse et al. (EuroPar 2018) introduced a general model for interference-aware scheduling in large scale parallel platforms. They considered two different types of communications: the flows induced by data exchanges during computations and the flows related to Input/Output operations. Rather than taking into account these communications explicitly, they restrict the possible allocations of a job by external topological constraints. In their work, jobs are considered to be rigid: a job requires a specific number of machines in order to be executed. Here, we first adopt the same framework for the platform and the aforementioned topological constraints. We show that there is no polynomial time approximation algorithm under the rigid setting with ratio smaller than 3/2, unless P = NP. Then, we focus on the malleable setting. We show that in the proportional-malleable setting, where the work of every job remains constant independently of the number of machines on which it is executed, the scheduling problem remains NPhard even in the uniform case, where the maximum number of machines is the same for all the jobs. Then, we propose a 2-approximation algorithm for this case. Furthermore, we present an approximation algorithm solving the more general case where the maximum number of machines is job-dependent and the work of the jobs is increasing with respect to the number of used machines, due to the communication overhead.

We consider a single machine, a set of unit-time jobs, and a set of unit-time errors. We assume that the time-slot at which each error will occur is not known in advance but, for every error, there exists an uncertainty area during which the error will take place. In order to find if the error occurs in a specific time-slot, it is necessary to issue a query to it. In this work, we study two problems: (i) the error-query scheduling problem, whose aim is to reveal enough error-free slots with the minimum number of queries, and (ii) the lexicographic error-query scheduling problem where we seek the earliest error-free slots with the minimum number of queries. We consider both the off-line and the on-line versions of the above problems. In the former, the whole instance and its characteristics are known in advance and we give a polynomial-time algorithm for the error-query scheduling problem. In the latter, the adversary has the power to decide, in an on-line way, the time-slot of appearance for each error. We propose then both lower bounds and algorithms whose competitive ratios asymptotically match these lower bounds.

We propose a unifying framework based on configuration linear programs and randomized rounding, for different energy optimization problems in the dynamic speed-scaling setting. We apply our framework to various scheduling and routing problems in heterogeneous computing and networking environments. We first consider the energy minimization problem of scheduling a set of jobs on a set of parallel speed-scalable processors in a fully heterogeneous setting. For both the preemptive-non-migratory and the preemptive-migratory variants, our approach allows us to obtain solutions of almost the same quality as for the homogeneous environment. By exploiting the result for the preemptive-non-migratory variant, we are able to improve the best known approximation ratio for the single processor non-preemptive problem. Furthermore, we show that our approach allows to obtain a constant-factor approximation algorithm for the power-aware preemptive job shop scheduling problem. Finally, we consider the min-power routing problem where we are given a network modeled by an undirected graph and a set of uniform demands that have to be routed on integral routes from their sources to their destinations so that the energy consumption is minimized. We improve the best known approximation ratio for this problem.

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Until recently, the standard communication model for scheduling the task of a parallel program has been the homogeneous communication model (also known as the delay model) introduced by Rayward-Smith for unit-execution-times, unit-communication times (UET-UTC) precedence graphs. In this model, we have a set of identical processors that are able to communicate in a uniform way. We want to use these processors in order to process a set of tasks that are subject to precedence contraints. Each task has a processing time, and if two adjacent task of the precedence graph are processed by two different processors (resp. the same processors) then a communication delay has to be taken into account explicitly (resp. the communication time is neglected). The problem is to find a trade-off between the two extreme solutions, namely, execute all the tasks sequentially without communications, or try to use all the potential parallelism but in the cost of an increased communication overhead. This model has been extensively studied these last years both from the compexity and the (non)-approximability point of views.