Polling under the randomly timed gated regime

Abstract

Polling systems under the Randomly Timed Gated (RTG) regime are studied and analyzed, and various performance measures are derived. The RTG protocol operates as follows: whenever the server enters a station, a Timer is activated. If the server empties the queue before the Timer‘s expiration, it moves on to the next node. Otherwise (i.e., if there is still work in the station when the Timer expires), the server obeys one of the following rules, each leading to a different model: (1) The server completes all the work accumulated up to the Timer‘s expiration and then moves on to the next node. (2) The server completes only the service of the job currently being served, and moves on. (3) The server stops working immediately and moves on. The RTG protocol defines a wide class of time-based control mechanisms: under rule (1) it spans an entire spectrum of regimes lying between the Gated and the Exhaustive, while under rule (2) it spans an entire spectrum between the 1-Limited and the Exhaustive protocols