A desired load distribution model for agent-based distributed scheduling

Scheduling problems concern the allocation of limited resources over time among both parallel and sequential activities. The majority of these problems belong to the class of NP-hard. Agent-based approaches have been applied to solve difficult scheduling problems. Load balancing is usually adopted as an optimization criterion for some scheduling problems, such as resource allocation in grid computing environments. However, in many practical situations, a load balanced solution may not be feasible or attainable. To deal with this limitation, this paper presents a generic mathematical model of load distribution for resource allocation, called desired load distribution. The objective is to develop a model that can be utilized for classical resource management settings as well as a model for a many-to-many optimized market setting.