English

A Polylogarithmic-Competitive Algorithm for the k-Server Problem

Data Structures and Algorithms 2011-10-10 v1

Abstract

We give the first polylogarithmic-competitive randomized online algorithm for the kk-server problem on an arbitrary finite metric space. In particular, our algorithm achieves a competitive ratio of O(log^3 n log^2 k log log n) for any metric space on n points. Our algorithm improves upon the deterministic (2k-1)-competitive algorithm of Koutsoupias and Papadimitriou [J.ACM'95] whenever n is sub-exponential in k.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1110.1580,
  title  = {A Polylogarithmic-Competitive Algorithm for the k-Server Problem},
  author = {Nikhil Bansal and Niv Buchbinder and Aleksander Madry and Joseph and Naor},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.1580},
  year   = {2011}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T19:16:50.765Z