Infinite server queueing networks with deadline based routing

Abstract

Motivated by timeouts in Internet services, we consider networks of infinite server queues in which routing decisions are based on deadlines. Specifically, at each node in the network, the total service time equals the minimum of several independent service times (e.g. the minimum of the amount of time required to complete a transaction and a deadline). Furthermore, routing decisions depend on which of the independent service times achieves the minimum (e.g. exceeding a deadline will require the customer to be routed so they can re-attempt the transaction). Because current routing decisions are dependent on past service times, much of the existing theory on product-form queueing networks does not apply. In spite of this, we are able to show that such networks have product-form equilibrium distributions. We verify our analytic characterization with a simulation of a simple network. We also discuss extensions of this work to more general settings.