Throughput maximization of complex resource allocation systems through timed-continuous-Petri-net modeling (Extended Abstract)

Fluid-relaxation-based scheduling is a powerful scheduling method with a long history in the context of scheduling of complex stochastic networks. In a recent work of ours, we have shown that this method holds extensive potential to provide near-optimal policies even when it is applied to scheduling problems that involve stochastic networks with blocking and deadlocking effects. However, those results were developed under the ad hoc representations for the continuous – or “fluid” – dynamics that define the “relaxation” of the original scheduling problem, that have been used traditionally by the various research communities that have investigated and/or employed this method. This document reports on our ongoing effort to recast our aforementioned results in the more formal modeling framework of timed-continuous Petri nets. We argue that this modeling framework provides a structured and natural framework for the implementation of this method in the context of the complex resource allocation that is the focus of our work, and we highlight the potential advantages of such a more structured approach.