The QNET method for two-moment analysis of open queueing networks

Consider an open network of single-server stations, each with a first-in-first-out discipline. The network may be populated by various customer types, each with its own routing and service requirements. Routing may be either deterministic or stochastic, and the interarrival and service time distributions may be arbitrary. In this paper a general method for steady-state performance analysis is described and illustrated. This analytical method, called QNET, uses both first and second moment information, and it is motivated by heavy traffic theory. However, our numerical examples show that QNET compares favorably with W. Whitt's Queueing Network Analyzer (QNA) and with other approximation schemes, even under conditions of light or moderate loading. In the QNET method one first replaces the original queueing network by what we call an approximating Brownian system model, and then one computes the stationary distribution of the Brownian model. The second step amounts to solving a certain highly structured partial differential equation problem; a promising general approach to the numerical solution of that PDE problem is described by Harrison and Dai [8] in a companion paper. Thus far the numerical solution technique has been implemented only for two-station networks, and it is clear that the computational burden will grow rapidly as the number of stations increases. Thus we also describe and investigate a cruder approach to two-moment network analysis, called ΠNET, which is based on a product form approximation, or decomposition approximation, to the stationary distribution of the Brownian system model. In very broad terms, ΠNET is comparable to QNA in its level of sophistication, whereas QNET captures more subtle system interactions. In our numerical examples the performance of ΠNET and QNA is similar; the performance of QNET is generally better, sometimes much better.