Optimization Techniques for Solving Complex Problems

CHAPTER 25

Remote Optimization Service

J. GARCÍA-NIETO, F. CHICANO, and E. ALBA

Universidad de Málaga, Spain

25.1 INTRODUCTION

Optimization problems are commonly tackled every day in the academic, industrial, and private domains, but only a few use optimization algorithms for solving their problems, especially in the industrial domain. The rest do not use optimization techniques because they do not know these techniques, they do not have enough knowledge to implement them or working with libraries, or they do not have the hardware resources required to work with the techniques.

In the literature we can find a plethora of libraries of optimization algorithms implemented in different programming languages [21], all with their own advantages and drawbacks. A common characteristic in almost all current related works is the use of XML [20], which facilitates the development of applications in such tasks as new algorithm creation, automatic code generation from XML specifications, integration of algorithms in services for its execution, and XML serialization of methods and objects. However, these libraries can only be used by people knowing the programming language in which the library is implemented, and even in this way, some time is required to be familiar with the algorithms.

In recent years, systems that integrate libraries of metaheuristic, exact, and hybrid algorithms have appeared. ...