Decentralization and mechanism design for online machine scheduling

Abstract We study the online version of the classical parallel machine scheduling problem to minimize the total weighted completion time from a new perspective: We assume that the data of each job, namely its re-lease date rj, its processing time pj and its weight wj is only known to the job itself, but not to the system. Furthermore, we assume a decen-tralized setting where jobs choose the machine on which they want to be processed themselves. We study this problem from the perspective of algorithmic mechanism design. We introduce the concept of a myopic best response equilibrium, a concept weaker than the dominant strategy equilibrium, but appropriate for online problems. We present a polyno-mial time, online scheduling mechanism that, assuming rational behavior of jobs, results in an equilibrium schedule that is 3.281-competitive. The mechanism deploys an online payment scheme that induces rational jobs to truthfully report their private data. We also show that the underly-ing local scheduling policy cannot be extended to a mechanism where truthful reports constitute a dominant strategy equilibrium.