We study the well-known load balancing problem in the distributed CONGEST model of computation. We consider the unrelated machines setting, where each job $j$ specifies a size $s_{ij}$ for every machine $i$. We want to find an assignment $\varphi: J \to M$ minimizing the maximum machine load, where the load of a machine $i$ is the total size of the jobs assigned to it. In the CONGEST model, the state-of-the-art is an algorithm that runs in polylog rounds and returns a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximate fractional solution from Ahmadian, Liu, Peng, and Zadimoghaddam (2021). However, this algorithm, as well as all previous CONGEST algorithms only solve a special case of load balancing, where each job has the same size on each machine. Our main contribution is an algorithm for general sizes $s_{ij}$. The algorithm computes a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximate fractional solution or a $(2+\varepsilon)$-approximate integral solution in polylog rounds. The problem structure changes significantly once we allow arbitrary edge-sizes, so our techniques are very different from those used in previous algorithms for distributed load balancing. One ingredient of our result is a black-box tool of independent interest: a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm to arbitrary mixed packing-covering linear programs in the CONGEST model in polylog rounds. such algorithms were known in the more powerful parallel model, but previous polylog-round algorithms in the distributed CONGEST model only solved pure packing or pure covering problems. We improve upon a recent $O(D\,\mathrm{polylog})$-round CONGEST algorithm for mixed packing-covering, where $D$ is the diameter of the communication graph.

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