On the Relative Waiting Times in the GI/M/s and the GI/M/1 Queueing Systems

Abstract

The expected steady-state waiting time, Wq(s), in a GI/M/s system with interarrival-time distribution H(·) is compared with the mean waiting time, Wq, in an "equivalent" system comprised of s separate GI/M/1 queues each fed by an interarrival-time distribution G(·) with mean arrival rate equal to 1/s times that of H(·). For H(·) assumed to be Exponential, Gamma or Deterministic three possible relationships between H(·) and G(·) are considered: G(·) can be of the "same type" as H(·); G(·) can be derived from H(·) by assigning new arrivals to the individual channels in a cyclic order; and G(·) may be obtained from H(·) by assigning customers probabilistically to the different queues. The limiting behaviour of the ratio R = Wq/Wq(s) is studied for the extreme values (1 and 0) of the common traffic intensity, ρ. Closed form results, which depend on the forms of H(·) and G(·) and on the relationships between them, are derived. It is shown that Wq is greater than Wq(s) by a factor of at least (s + 1)/2 when ρ approaches one, and that R is at least s(s!) when ρ tends to zero. In the latter case, however, R goes to infinity (!) in most cases treated. The results may be used to evaluate the effect on the waiting times when, for certain (non-queueing) reasons, it is needed to partition a group of s servers into several small groups.