A Comprehensive Study of an Online Packet Scheduling Algorithm

Abstract: We study the \emph{bounded-delay model} for Qualify-of-Service buffer management. Time is discrete. There is a buffer. Unit-length jobs (also called \emph{packets}) arrive at the buffer over time. Each packet has an integer release time, an integer deadline, and a positive real value. A packet's characteristics are not known to an online algorithm until the packet actually arrives. In each time step, at most one packet can be sent out of the buffer. The objective is to maximize the total value of the packets sent by their respective deadlines in an online manner. An online algorithm's performance is usually measured in terms of \emph{competitive ratio}, when this online algorithm is compared with a clairvoyant algorithm achieving the best total value. In this paper, we study a simple and intuitive online algorithm. We analyze its performance in terms of competitive ratio for the general model and a few important variants.