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On the distribution of the number of customers in the symmetric M/G/1 queue

Abstract

We consider an M/G/1 queue with symmetric service discipline. The class of symmetric service disciplines contains, in particular, the preemptive last-come-first-served discipline and the processor-sharing discipline. It has been conjectured in Kella et al. [1] that the marginal distribution of the queue length at any time is identical for all symmetric disciplines if the queue starts empty. In this paper we show that this conjecture is true if service requirements have an Erlang distribution. We also show by a counterexample, involving the hyperexponential distribution, that the conjecture is generally not true.

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References

  1. O. Kella, B. Zwart, and O. Boxma, Some time-dependent properties of symmetric M/G/1 queues. J. Appl. Prob. 42 (2005) 223–234.

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  3. M.Yu. Kitaev, The M/G/1 processor-sharing model: transient behavior. Queueing Systems 14 (1993) 239–273.

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Correspondence to Artëm Sapozhnikov.

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AMS Subject Classifications Primary—60K25; Secondary—90B22

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Denisov, D., Sapozhnikov, A. On the distribution of the number of customers in the symmetric M/G/1 queue. Queueing Syst 54, 237–241 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11134-006-0298-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11134-006-0298-2

Keywords

  • Symmetric queue
  • Time-dependent analysis
  • Insensitivity
  • Processor-sharing queue
  • Last come first served queue