Unknown optimal scheduling for non-parallelizable multiserver systems

Determine the optimal scheduling policy that minimizes mean response time for systems where each job occupies a single server (non-parallelizable jobs) under general multiserver settings.

Background

The authors note that even in the simpler case where jobs are not parallelizable, finding the optimal scheduling policy in multiserver systems is a longstanding challenge.

This motivates turning to asymptotic regimes and informs the approach taken in the paper for the more complex setting of parallelizable jobs.