A tight bound on the throughput of queueing networks with blocking

Abstract

In this paper, we present a bounding methodology that allows to compute a tight bound on the throughput of fork-join queueing networks with blocking and with general service time distributions. No exact models exist for queueing networks with general service time distributions and, consequently, bounds are the only certain information available. The methodology relies on two ideas. First, probability mass fitting (PMF) discretizes the service time distributions so that the evolution of the modified system can be modelled by a discrete Markov chain. Second, we show that the critical path can be computed with the discretized distributions and that the same sequence of jobs offers a bound on the original throughput. The tightness of the bound is shown on computational experiments (error on the order of one percent). Finally, we discuss the extension to split-and-merge networks and the approximate estimations of the throughput. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.