Stochastic dominance is a technique for evaluating the performance of online algorithms that provides an intuitive, yet powerful stochastic order between the compared algorithms. Accordingly this holds for bijective analysis, which can be interpreted as stochastic dominance assuming the uniform distribution over requests. These techniques have been applied to some online problems, and have provided a clear separation between algorithms whose performance varies significantly in practice. However, there are situations in which they are not readily applicable due to the fact that they stipulate a stringent relation between the compared algorithms. In this paper, we propose remedies for these shortcomings. First, we establish sufficient conditions that allow us to prove the bijective optimality of a certain class of algorithms for a wide range of problems; we demonstrate this approach in the context of some well-studied online problems. Second, to account for situations in which two algorithms are incomparable or there is no clear optimum, we introduce the bijective ratio as a natural extension of (exact) bijective analysis. Our definition readily generalizes to stochastic dominance. This renders the concept of bijective analysis (and that of stochastic dominance) applicable to all online problems, and allows for the incorporation of other useful techniques such as amortized analysis. We demonstrate the applicability of the bijective ratio to one of the fundamental online problems, namely the continuous @math -server problem on metrics such as the line, the circle, and the star. Among other results, we show that the greedy algorithm attains bijective ratios of @math consistently across these metrics. These results confirm extensive previous studies that gave evidence of the efficiency of this algorithm on said metrics in practice, which, however, is not reflected in competitive analysis.
This paper provides a systematic study of several proposed measures for online algorithms in the context of a specific problem, namely, the two server problem on three colinear points. Even though the problem is simple, it encapsulates a core challenge in online algorithms which is to balance greediness and adaptability. We examine Competitive Analysis, the Max Max Ratio, the Random Order Ratio, Bijective Analysis and Relative Worst Order Analysis, and determine how these measures compare the Greedy Algorithm, Double Coverage, and Lazy Double Coverage, commonly studied algorithms in the context of server problems. We find that by the Max Max Ratio and Bijective Analysis, Greedy is the best of the three algorithms. Under the other measures, Double Coverage and Lazy Double Coverage are better, though Relative Worst Order Analysis indicates that Greedy is sometimes better. Only Bijective Analysis and Relative Worst Order Analysis indicate that Lazy Double Coverage is better than Double Coverage. Our results also provide the first proof of optimality of an algorithm under Relative Worst Order Analysis. An accepted measure for the performance of an on-line algorithm is the “competitive ratio“ introduced by Sleator and Tarjan. This measure is well motivated and has led to the development of a mathematical theory for on-line algorithms.