An integer linear formulation for the file transfer scheduling problem

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new integer linear programming (ILP) formulation for solving a file transfer scheduling problem (FTSP), which is to minimize the overall time needed to transfer all files to their destinations for a given collection of various sized files in a computer network. Each computer in this network has a limited number of communication ports. The described problem is proved to be NP-hard in a general case. Our formulation enables solving the problem by standard ILP solvers like CPLEX or Gurobi. To prove the validity of the proposed ILP formulation, two new reformulations of FTSP are presented. The results obtained by CPLEX and Gurobi solvers, based on this formulation, are presented and discussed.