Exact convex formulations of network-oriented optimal operator placement

Data processing tasks are increasingly spread across the internet to account for the spatially distributed nature of many data sources. In order to use network resources efficiently, subtasks need to be distributed in the network so data can be filtered close to the data sources. Previous approaches to this operator placement problem relied on various heuristics to constrain the complexity of the problem. In this paper, we propose two generic integer constrained problem formulations: a topology aware version which provides a placement including the specific network links as well as an end-to-end delay aware version which relies on the routing capabilities of the network. A linear programming relaxation for both versions is provided which allows exact and efficient solution using common solvers.