On the power of two choices: Balls and bins in continuous time

Abstract

Suppose that there are n bins, and balls arrive in a Poisson process at rate λn, where λ>0 is a constant. Upon arrival, each ball chooses a fixed number d of random bins, and is placed into one with least load. Balls have independent exponential lifetimes with unit mean. We show that the system converges rapidly to its equilibrium distribution; and when d≥2, there is an integer-valued function m_d(n)=ln ln n/ln d+O(1) such that, in the equilibrium distribution, the maximum load of a bin is concentrated on the two values m_d(n) and m_d(n)−1, with probability tending to 1, as n→∞. We show also that the maximum load usually does not vary by more than a constant amount from ln ln n/ln d, even over quite long periods of time.