Filtering effects of queueing systems on end-to-end network performance

A network is a mesh connection of network elements (NEs), each of which can be characterized as a single server queueing system. Upon arrival to the s ingle server queueing system, a customer may see another customer already i n service, and yet others may be in the queue. The new arrival either joins the queue, or is lost if there is no room available. By studying the traff ic parameters at the ingress and egress of a generic NE, it is possible to deduce the filtering effect of a single server queueing system. On the assu mption of exponential on-off traffic flows, we have derived equations to re cursively compute the output traffic parameters as a function of the input traffic parameters. Since the output from the ith NE is also the input to t he (i + 1)st NE, the recursive equations allow us to assess the end-to-end network performance. Simulation results are used to gauge the accuracy of t he analytical approach. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.