Completed as a final project for MATH 377, Mathematical Modelling, at the University of Victoria (Fall 2021).
A popular conference has installed a number of displays, with connected computers, which will show live updates about ongoing events and developments for the conference. In order to acheive this, the display computers poll a server for data on a fixed interval. It is important for the organizers that the displays stay as closely synchronized as possible.
In the planning of the next years conference, the organizers have a limited budget to purches additional displays and server computers. Ideally, they would like to have displays in all availible locations in the venue, since this would keep as many attendees as possible up to date with the current events. As such, the organizers would like to know:
- What is the minimum number of server machines required in order to serve the complete set of displays?
- What is the optimal placement of the machines within the venue?
- Which server should each display computer route their requests to?