Concepts, Theory, and Techniques DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER SYSTEM DESIGN: A MULTICRITERIA DECISION‐MAKING METHODOLOGY*
提出一种基于多准则决策技术的交互式方法，帮助系统设计师在多个冲突目标（如高可用性、低成本、快速响应）之间权衡，逐步生成并选择非劣设计方案。
ABSTRACT The design of distributed computer systems (DCSs) requires compromise among several conflicting objectives. For instance, high system availability conflicts with low cost which in turn conflicts with quick response time. This paper presents an approach, based on multi‐criteria decision‐making techniques, to arrive at a good design in this multiobjective environment. An interactive procedure is developed to support the decision making of system designers. Starting from an initial solution, the procedure presents a sequence of non‐dominated vectors to designers, allowing them to explore systematically alternative possibilities on the path to a final design. The model user has control over trade‐offs among different design objectives. This paper focuses on the details of the mathematical model used to provide decision support. Accordingly, a formulation of DCS design as a multicriteria decision problem is developed. The exchange search heuristic used to generate nondominated solutions also is presented. We argue that multicriteria models provide a more realistic formulation of the DCS design problem than the single‐criterion models used widely in the literature. While obtaining a clear definition of design objectives (single or multiple) is an important activity, by explicitly acknowledging the trade‐offs among multiple objectives in the design process, our methodology is more likely to produce a better overall design than methods addressing a single criterion in isolation.