What is Round Robin?
Round Robin is a popular scheduling algorithm which is used in computer science, sports and education systems. This algorithm has been used for over a century in various fields to create a fair and balanced schedule among the participants.
In simple words, Round Robin is a method that ensures each participant in a group gets an equal share of an opportunity to participate or compete. For example, in a sports league, Round Robin scheduling algorithm ensures that every team plays against every other team, ensuring no team has an unfair advantage over another.
The Round Robin algorithm works by arranging participants in a circle and establishing a predefined sequence of matchups. Each participant competes in a fixed sequence throughout the season or event. This method moves the participants along the line-up with their opponents, ensuring each participant meets all the others.
For instance, if there are four participants labeled A, B, C, and D, and they under Round Robin algorithm, they will be scheduled in the following order:
Round 1: A vs B, C vs D
Round 2: A vs C, B vs D
Round 3: A vs D, B vs C
The above-mentioned schedule will ensure that each participant plays against every other participant once, reducing the chance of a particular participant receiving an unfair advantage. This same algorithm can be extended to as many participants as possible, depending on the size of the group or competition.
Apart from sports leagues, Round Robin scheduling algorithm is also employed in schools and universities, where it is often used to assign projects and presentations to ensure that each student has an opportunity to participate in the program.
In computer networks, Round Robin is a load-balancing algorithm used to allocate jobs to multiple servers in a cluster. This method distributes processing or data requests throughout servers to minimize server downtime and server failure. The algorithm assigns tasks to each server in-turn, ensuring that no one server becomes overwhelmed and that all servers are used efficiently.