On-line minimization of call setup time via load balancing: a stochastic approximation approach

The authors address the problem of reducing the call setup time in a circuit-switched network, or, equivalently, the session setup time in a packet-switched network, through the balancing of load across call processors. A stochastic optimization problem is formulated, and the use of stochastic approximation techniques is studied. Given the distributed nature of the problem, previous results obtained for a single node are extended to the case where several nodes operate simultaneously and in an asynchronous manner. A theoretical study of convergence as well as several simulation results that compare two stochastic approximation techniques are presented