How to precalculate valid number of combinations instead of using while loop?

Question

Given List of datacenters which are dc1, dc2, dc3 and list of machines, h1, h2, h3, h4 as mentioned below -

Datacenters = dc1, dc2, dc3
Machines = h1, h2, h3, h         


        

Answer 1

You're talking math. The answer is (n choose k), where n is the number of machines, and k is the number of datacenters.

The reason is the following: The ordering doesn't really matter, so we'll assume that the Datacenters are always arranged in the same order. For the first data center, we can pick any one of the n machines. For the second, we can pick any one of the machines, except for the one picked before, thus n * (n-1). The next data center will lead to n * (n-1) * (n-2) possible situations.

Thus, if you had 10 machines, and 4 datacenters, you would have:

10 * 9 * 8 * 7 possibile combinations.

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination

If you want a function to do the work for you , it is in the Apache commons: http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-math/apidocs/org/apache/commons/math3/util/ArithmeticUtils.html#binomialCoefficientDouble%28int,%20int%29

However, if you are actually wanting to generate those combinations, then you need a for loop.