Online Algorithms for Covering and Packing Problems with Convex Objectives Yossi Azar∗, Niv Buchbindery, T-H. Hubert Chanz, Shahar Chenx, Ilan Reuven Coheny, Anupam Gupta{, Zhiyi Huangz, Ning Kangz, Viswanath Nagarajank, Joseph (Seffi) Naorx, Debmalya Panigrahi∗∗ ∗Blavatnik School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Email:
[email protected],
[email protected] yDepartment of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Email:
[email protected] zDepartment of Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Email: fhubert,zhiyi,
[email protected] xDepartment of Computer Science, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. Email:
[email protected],
[email protected] {Department of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. Email:
[email protected] kDepartment of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Email:
[email protected] ∗∗Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. Email:
[email protected] Abstract—We present online algorithms for covering and a primal-dual algorithm, and then rounding it, has proved to be packing problems with (non-linear) convex objectives. The convex a very powerful general technique (see [4] for a survey). This covering problem is defined as: minx2 n f(x) s.t. Ax ≥ 1, where R+ framework is applicable to many central online problems, like f : n ! A m × n R+ R+ is a monotone convex function, and is an the classic ski rental problem, online set-cover [5], generalized matrix with non-negative entries. In the online version, a new row of the constraint matrix, representing a new covering constraint, paging [6], [7], k-server and metrical task systems [8], [9], is revealed in each step and the algorithm is required to maintain graph connectivity [10], [11], routing [12], load balancing and a feasible and monotonically non-decreasing assignment x over machine scheduling [13], [14], matching [15], and budgeted time.