The cyclic queue and the tandem queue

We consider a closed queueing network, consisting of two FCFS single server queues in series: a queue with general service times and a queue with exponential service times. A fixed number \(N\) of customers cycle through this network. We determine the joint sojourn time distribution of a tagged customer in, first, the general queue and, then, the exponential queue. Subsequently, we indicate how the approach toward this closed system also allows us to study the joint sojourn time distribution of a tagged customer in the equivalent open two-queue system, consisting of FCFS single server queues with general and exponential service times, respectively, in the case that the input process to the first queue is a Poisson process.     

Transient analysis of a two-heterogeneous servers queue with system disaster,server repair and customers’ impatience

A two-heterogeneous servers queue with system disaster, server failure and repair is considered. In addition, the customers become impatient when the system is down. The customers arrive according to a Poisson process and service time follows exponential distribution. Each customer requires exactly one server for its service and the customers select the servers on fastest server first basis. Explicit expressions are derived for the time-dependent system size probabilities in terms of the modified Bessel function, by employing the generating function along with continued fraction and the identity of the confluent hypergeometric function. Further, the steady-state probabilities of the number of customers in the system are deduced and finally some important performance measures are obtained.     

A Queue with Semi-Markovian Batch Plus Poisson Arrivals with Application to the MPEG Frame Sequence

We consider a queueing system with a single server having a mixture of a semi-Markov process (SMP) and a Poisson process as the arrival process, where each SMP arrival contains a batch of customers. The service times are exponentially distributed. We derive the distributions of the queue length of both SMP and Poisson customers when the sojourn time distributions of the SMP have rational Laplace–Stieltjes transforms. We prove that the number of unknown constants contained in the generating function for the queue length distribution equals the number of zeros of the denominator of this generating function in the case where the sojourn times of the SMP follow exponential distributions. The linear independence of the equations generated by those zeros is discussed for the same case with additional assumption. The necessary and sufficient condition for the stability of the system is also analyzed. The distributions of the waiting times of both SMP and Poisson customers are derived. The results are applied to the case in which the SMP arrivals correspond to the exact sequence of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) frames. Poisson arrivals are regarded as interfering traffic. In the numerical examples, the mean and variance of the waiting time of the ATM cells generated from the MPEG frames of real video data are evaluated.     

Single line queue with recurrent repeated demands

We analyze a model queueing system in which customers cannot be in continuous contact with the server, but must call in to request service. If the server is free, the customer enters service immediately, but if the server is occupied, the unsatisfied customer must break contact and reapply for service later. There are two types of customer present who may reapply. First transit customers who arrive from outside according to a Poisson process and if they find the server busy they join a source of unsatisfied customers, called the orbit, who according to an exponential distribution reapply for service till they find the server free and leave the system on completion of service. Secondly there are a number of recurrent customers present who reapply for service according to a different exponential distribution and immediately go back in to the orbit after each completion of service. We assume a general service time distribution and calculate several characterstic quantities of the system for both the constant rate of reapplying for service and for the case when customers are discouraged and reduce their rate of demand as more customers join the orbit.     

A discrete-time queueing system with optional LCFS discipline

We consider a discrete-time queueing system in which the arriving customers decide with a certain probability to be served under a LCFS-PR discipline and with complementary probability to join the queue. The arrivals are assumed to be geometrical and the service times are arbitrarily distributed. The service times of the expelled customers are independent of their previous ones. We carry out an extensive analysis of the system developing recursive formulae and generating functions for the steady-state distribution of the number of customers in the system and obtaining also recursive formulae and generating functions for the stationary distribution of the busy period and sojourn time as well as some performance measures.     

An optimality criterion for a limited capacity queueing system

A single server, limited capacity queueing system with Poisson arrivals and exponential service is studied. The joint probability distribution of the number of times the system reaches its capacity in time interval (0t] and the number of customers in the system at time i has been obtained. From, the joint probability, the probability that the system has reached its capacity m times in time interval (0t] has been determined and the expectation and variance have been found explicitly. A criterion for the system to be optimum is established and is illustrated numerically.     

A simple heuristic for load balancing in parallel processing networks with highly variable service time distributions

Suppose that customers arrive at a service center (call center, web server, etc.) with two stations in accordance with independent Poisson processes. Service times at either station follow the same general distribution, are independent of each other and are independent of the arrival process. The system is charged station-dependent holding costs at each station per customer per unit time. At any point in time, a decision-maker may decide to move, at a cost, some number of jobs in one queue to the other. The goals of this paper are twofold. First, we are interested in providing insights into this decision-making scenario. We do so, in the important case that the service time distribution is highly variable or simply has a heavy tail. Secondly, we propose that the savvy use of Markov decision processes can lead to easily implementable heuristics when features of the service time distribution can be captured by introducing multiple customer classes. To this end, we consider a two-station proxy for the original system, where the service times are assumed to be exponential, but of one of two classes with different rates. We prove structural results for this proxy and show that these results lead to heuristics that perform well.     

Multiserver queue with addressed retrials

This paper presents a multiserver retrial queueing system with servers kept apart, thereby rendering it impossible for one to know the status (idle/busy) of the others. Customers proceeding to one channel will have to go to orbit if the server in it is busy and retry after some time to some channel, not necessarily the one already tried. Each orbital customer, independently of others, chooses the server randomly according to some specified probability distribution. Further this distribution is identical for all customers. We assume that the same ‘orbit’ is used by all retrial customers, between repeated attempts, to access the servers. We derive the system state probability distribution under Poisson arrival process of external customers, exponentially distributed service times and linear retrial rates to access the servers. Several system state characteristics are obtained and numerical illustrations provided. AMS subject classification: Primary 60K25 60K20     

Perishable Inventory System at Service Facilities with N Policy

Abstract

This article presents a perishable stochastic inventory system under continuous review at a service facility in which the waiting hall for customers is of finite size M. The service starts only when the customer level reaches N (< M), once the server has become idle for want of customers. The maximum storage capacity is fixed as S. It is assumed that demand for the commodity is of unit size. The arrivals of customers to the service station form a Poisson process with parameter λ. The individual customer is issued a demanded item after a random service time, which is distributed as negative exponential. The items of inventory have exponential life times. It is also assumed that lead time for the reorders is distributed as exponential and is independent of the service time distribution. The demands that occur during stock out periods are lost.The joint probability distribution of the number of customers in the system and the inventory levels is obtained in steady state case. Some measures of system performance in the steady state are derived. The results are illustrated with numerical examples.     

Transient analysis of a queue with system disasters and customer impatience

A single server queue with Poisson arrivals and exponential service times is studied. The system suffers disastrous breakdowns at an exponential rate, resulting in the loss of all running and waiting customers. When the system is down, it undergoes a repair mechanism where the repair time follows an exponential distribution. During the repair time any new arrival is allowed to join the system, but the customers become impatient when the server is not available for a long time. In essence, each customer, upon arrival, activates an individual timer, which again follows an exponential distribution with parameter ξ. If the system is not repaired before the customer’s timer expires, the customer abandons the queue and never returns. The time-dependent system size probabilities are presented using generating functions and continued fractions.     

Bayesian prediction inM/M/1 queues

Simple queues with Poisson input and exponential service times are considered to illustrate how well-suited Bayesian methods are used to handle the common inferential aims that appear when dealing with queue problems. The emphasis will mainly be placed on prediction; in particular, we study the predictive distribution of usual measures of effectiveness in anM/M/1 queue system, such as the number of customers in the queue and in the system, the waiting time in the queue and in the system, the length of an idle period and the length of a busy period.     

Markovian polling systems with mixed service disciplines and retrial customers

A Markovian polling model with a mixture of exhaustive and gated type stations is considered. The cuttomers are ofn different tppes and arrive to the system acccording to the Poisson distribution, in batches containing customers of all types (correlated batch arrivals). The customers who find upon arrival the server unavailable repeat their arrival individually after a random amount of time (retrial customers). The service timesT _i and the switchover timesV _ij are arbitrarily distributed with different distributions for the different stations. For such a model we obtain formulae for the expected number of customers in each station in a steady state. Our formulae hold also for zero switchover periods and can easily be adapted to hold for the corresponding ordinary Markovian mixed polling models with/without switchover times and correlated batch arrivals. Numerical calculations are finally used to observe system's performance.     

Response times in gated M/G/1 queues: The processor-sharing case

A class of single server queues with Poisson arrivals and a gated server is considered. Whenever the server becomes idle the gate separating it from the waiting line opens, admitting all the waiting customers into service, and then closes again. The batch admitted into service may be served according to some arbitrary scheme. The equilibrium waiting time distribution is provided for the subclass of conservative schemes with arbitrary service times and the processor-sharing case is treated in some detail to produce the equilibrium time-in-service and response time distributions, conditional on the length of required service. The LIFO and random order of service schemes and the case of compound Poisson arrivals are treated briefly as examples of the effectiveness of the proposed method of analysis. All distributions are provided in terms of their Laplace transforms except for the case of exponential service times where the L.T. of the waiting time distribution is inverted. The first two moments of the equilibrium waiting and response times are provided for most treated cases and in the exponential service times case the batch size distribution is also presented.     

A decomposition theorem and related results for the discriminatory processor sharing queue

In this paper, we study a discriminatory processor sharing queue with Poisson arrivals,K classes and general service times. For this queue, we prove a decomposition theorem for the conditional sojourn time of a tagged customer given the service times and class affiliations of the customers present in the system when the tagged customer arrives. We show that this conditional sojourn time can be decomposed inton+1 components if there aren customers present when the tagged customer arrives. Further, we show that thesen+1 components can be obtained as a solution of a system of non-linear integral equations. These results generalize known results about theM/G/1 egalitarian processor sharing queue.     

On the speed of convergence to stationarity of the Erlang loss system

We consider the Erlang loss system, characterized by N servers, Poisson arrivals and exponential service times, and allow the arrival rate to be a function of N. We discuss representations and bounds for the rate of convergence to stationarity of the number of customers in the system, and display some bounds for the total variation distance between the time-dependent and stationary distributions. We also pay attention to time-dependent rates.     

A recursive method to the optimal control of an M/G/1 queueing system with finite capacity and infinite capacity

We study a single removable server in an infinite and a finite queueing systems with Poisson arrivals and general distribution service times. The server may be turned on at arrival epochs or off at service completion epochs. We present a recursive method, using the supplementary variable technique and treating the supplementary variable as the remaining service time, to obtain the steady state probability distribution of the number of customers in a finite system. The method is illustrated analytically for three different service time distributions: exponential, 3-stage Erlang, and deterministic. Cost models for infinite and finite queueing systems are respectively developed to determine the optimal operating policy at minimum cost.     

Limit theorems for queueing systems with infinite number of servers and group arrival of requests

We consider an infinite-server queueing system where customers come by groups of random size at random i.d. intervals of time. The number of requests in a group and intervals between their arrivals can be dependent. We assume that service times have a regularly varying distribution with infinite mean. We obtain limit theorems for the number of customers in the system and prove limit theorems under appropriate normalizations.     

Sojourn Times in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">PH</Emphasis>/1 Processor Sharing Queue

We give in this paper an algorithm to compute the sojourn time distribution in the processor sharing, single server queue with Poisson arrivals and phase type distributed service times. In a first step, we establish the differential system governing the conditional sojourn times probability distributions in this queue, given the number of customers in the different phases of the PH distribution at the arrival instant of a customer. This differential system is then solved by using a uniformization procedure and an exponential of matrix. The proposed algorithm precisely consists of computing this exponential with a controlled accuracy. This algorithm is then used in practical cases to investigate the impact of the variability of service times on sojourn times and the validity of the so-called reduced service rate (RSR) approximation, when service times in the different phases are highly dissymmetrical. For two-stage PH distributions, we give conjectures on the limiting behavior in terms of an M/M/1 PS queue and provide numerical illustrative examples.This revised version was published online in June 2005 with corrected coverdate     

Asymptotic Analysis of Spectral Properties of Finite Capacity Processor Shared Queues

We consider sojourn (or response) times in processor‐shared queues that have a finite customer capacity. Computing the response time of a tagged customer involves solving a finite system of linear ODEs. Writing the system in matrix form, we study the eigenvectors and eigenvalues in the limit as the size of the matrix becomes large. This corresponds to finite capacity models where the system can only hold a large number K of customers. Using asymptotic methods we reduce the eigenvalue problem to that of a standard differential equation, such as the Airy equation. The dominant eigenvalue leads to the tail of a customer's sojourn time distribution. Some numerical results are given to assess the accuracy of the asymptotic results.     

Double-sided matching queues: Priority and impatient customers

We analyze a double-sided queue with priority that serves patient customers and customers with zero patience (i.e., impatient customers). In a two-sided market, high and low priority customers arrive to one side and match with queued customers on the opposite side. Impatient customers match with queued patient customers; when there is no queue, they leave the system unmatched. All arrivals follow independent Poisson processes. We derive exact formulae for the stationary queue length distribution and several steady-state performance measures.