Hello folks, At various AFS get-togethers over the years, I've mentioned the AFS server balancing method that Neil Crellin developed here at Stanford that phrases the balancing problem as a linear programming problem and then uses a commercial linear programming optimizer to find a solution. (Also known as the *really thorough* balancing method. *heh*) A few people have expressed interest out of morbid curiosity, so since I just finished resurrecting this approach so that we could use it again even though our cell has grown significantly, I took the time to write it up.
The overview and general discussion is at: <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/notes/afs/balance.html> If you want to see the constraints and algorithm described there expressed in mathematics, there is an accompanying mathematical paper at: <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/notes/afs/balance.pdf> (A TeX version is also available.) Finally, the software that we use to prepare the AMPL input file and process the results is available at: <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/afs-balance/> I would not really recommend that you use this approach unless you already have a license for ILOG CPLEX or some other suitable linear programming optimizer, since this probably isn't sufficiently better to warrant purchasing anything. If, like us, you just happened to have a license sitting around, this approach will give you a rather thorough balance. Note that the software (although not the technique) is dependant on the AFS reporting database that I mentioned in my message to the list earlier this week. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> _______________________________________________ OpenAFS-info mailing list OpenAFS-info@openafs.org https://lists.openafs.org/mailman/listinfo/openafs-info