Chapter 7

Queuing Systems

We are now ready to analyze a broad range of queuing systems that play a crucial role in Computer Science and other fields.

Definition 7.1

A queuing system is a facility consisting of one or several servers designed to perform certain tasks or process certain jobs and a queue of jobs waiting to be processed.

Jobs arrive at the queuing system, wait for an available server, get processed by this server, and leave.

Examples of queuing systems are:

  • a personal or shared computer executing tasks sent by its users;
  • an internet service provider whose customers connect to the internet, browse, and disconnect;
  • a printer processing jobs sent to it from different computers;
  • a customer service with one or several representatives ...

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