OPTIMAL BUFFER ALLOCATION IN A 2-STAGE QUEUING SYSTEM

We study the buffer allocation problem in a two-stage cyclic queueing system. First, we show that transposing the number of buffers assigned to each queue does not affect the throughput. Second, we prove that t he optimal buffer allocation scheme, in the sense of maximizing the sy stem's throughput, is the one for which the absolute difference betwee n the number of buffers, assigned to each queue, is minimized, i.e., i t becomes either 0 or 1. This optimal allocation is insensitive to the general-type service-time distributions. These two distributions may be different and service times may even be correlated.