The paper is devoted to the estimation of the rate of of exponential convergence of nonhomogeneous queues exhibiting different types of ergodicity.
The main tool of our study is the method, which was proposed by the second author in the late 1980-s and was subsequently extended and developed in different directions in a series of joint papers by the authors of the present paper. The method originated from the idea of Gnedenko and Makarov to employ the logarithmic norm of a matrix to the study of the problem of stability of nonhomogeneous Markov chains.
In the present paper, we apply the method to a class of Markov queues with a special form of nonhomogenuity that is common in applications.
This contribution investigates asymptotic properties of transient queue length process $$ Q(t)=\max\left(x+X(t)-ct, \sup_{0\leq s\leq t}\left(X(t)-X(s)-c(t-s)\right)\right),\ \ \ t\geq 0 $$ in Gaussian fluid queueing model, where input process $X$ is modeled by a centered Gaussian process with stationary increments, $c>0$ is the output rate and $x=Q(0)\ge0$. More specifically, under some mild conditions on $X$, exact asymptotics of $$\mathbb{P}\left(Q(T_u)>u\right) $$ as $u\to\infty$, is derived. The play between $u$ and $T_u$ leads to two qualitatively different regimes: (A) short-time horizo…
We consider a model for a queue in which only a fixed number $N$ of customers can join. Each customer joins the queue independently at an exponentially distributed time. Assuming further that the service times are independent and follow an exponential distribution, this system can be described as a two-dimensional Markov process on a finite triangular region $\mathfrak S$ of the square lattice. We interpret the resulting random walk on $\mathfrak S$ as a Dyck path that is weighted according to some state-dependent transition probabilities that are constant along one axis, but are rather genera…
In this paper we propose a new method for approximating the nonstationary moment dynamics of one dimensional Markovian birth-death processes. By expanding the transition probabilities of the Markov process in terms of Poisson-Charlier polynomials, we are able to estimate any moment of the Markov process even though the system of moment equations may not be closed. Using new weighted discrete Sobolev spaces, we derive explicit error bounds of the transition probabilities and new weak a priori estimates for approximating the moments of the Markov processs using a truncated form of the expansion.…
The paper investigates uniform convergence of wavelet expansions of Gaussian random processes. The convergence is obtained under simple general conditions on processes and wavelets which can be easily verified. Applications of the developed technique are shown for several classes of stochastic processes. In particular, the main theorem is adjusted to the fractional Brownian motion case. New results on the rate of convergence of the wavelet expansions in the space $C([0,T])$ are also presented.
In this note we prove that the speed of convergence of the workload of a Lévy-driven queue to the quasi-stationary distribution is of order $1/t$. We identify also the Laplace transform of the measure giving this speed and provide some examples.
It is known that in a stationary Brownian queue with both arrival and service processes equal in law to Brownian motion, the departure process is a Brownian motion, that is, Burke's theorem in this context. In this short note we prove convergence to this invariant measure: if we have an arbitrary continuous process satisfying some mild conditions as initial arrival process and pass it through an infinite tandem network of queues, the resulting process weakly converges to a Brownian motion. We assume independent and exponential initial workloads for all queues.
In this note, a general approach to the study of non-stationary Markov chains with catastrophes and the corresponding queuing models is considered, as well as to obtain estimates of the limiting regime itself. As an illustration, an example of a queuing model is studied.
A Markovian single-server queue is studied in an interactive random environment. The arrival and service rates of the queue depend on the environment, while the transition dynamics of the random environment depends on the queue length. We consider in detail two types of Markov random environments: a pure jump process and a reflected jump-diffusion. In both cases, the joint dynamics is constructed so that the stationary distribution can be explicitly found in a simple form (weighted geometric). We also derive an explicit estimate for exponential rate of convergence to the stationary distributio…
This paper contains an asymptotic analysis of a fluid model for a heavily loaded processor sharing queue. Specifically, we consider the behavior of solutions of critical fluid models as time approaches \infty. The main theorems of the paper provide sufficient conditions for a fluid model solution to converge to an invariant state and, under slightly more restrictive assumptions, provide a rate of convergence. These results are used in a related work by Gromoll for establishing a heavy traffic diffusion approximation for a processor sharing queue.
We apply the method of differential inequalities for the computation of upper bounds for the rate of convergence to the limiting regime for one specific class of (in)homogeneous continuous-time Markov chains. To obtain these estimates, we investigate the corresponding forward system of Kolmogorov differential equations.
A result of Ward and Glynn (2005) asserts that the sequence of scaled offered waiting time processes of the $GI/GI/1+GI$ queue converges weakly to a reflected Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process (ROU) in the positive real line, as the traffic intensity approaches one. As a consequence, the stationary distribution of a ROU process, which is a truncated normal, should approximate the scaled stationary distribution of the offered waiting time in a $GI/GI/1+GI$ queue; however, no such result has been proved. We prove the aforementioned convergence, and the convergence of the moments, in heavy traffic, thus…
We analyze the behavior of closed product-form queueing networks when the number of customers grows to infinity and remains proportionate on each route (or class). First, we focus on the stationary behavior and prove the conjecture that the stationary distribution at non-bottleneck queues converges weakly to the stationary distribution of an ergodic, open product-form queueing network. This open network is obtained by replacing bottleneck queues with per-route Poissonian sources whose rates are determined by the solution of a strictly concave optimization problem. Then, we focus on the transie…
Fluid models have become an important tool for the study of many-server queues with general service and patience time distributions. The equilibrium state of a fluid model has been revealed by Whitt (2006) and shown to yield reasonable approximations to the steady state of the original stochastic systems. However, it remains an open question whether the solution to a fluid model converges to the equilibrium state and under what condition. We show in this paper that the convergence holds under a mild condition. Our method builds on the framework of measure-valued processes developed in Zhang (2…
We show that the steady-state distribution of the join-the-shortest-queue (JSQ) system converges, in the Halfin-Whitt regime, to its diffusion limit at a rate of at least $1/\sqrt{n}$, where $n$ is the number of servers. Our proof uses Stein's method and, specifically, the recently proposed prelimit generator comparison approach. The JSQ system is non-trivial, high-dimensional, and has a state-space collapse component, and our analysis may serve as a helpful example to readers wishing to apply the approach to their own setting.
Heavy-traffic limit theory deals with queues that operate close to criticality and face severe queueing times. Let $W$ denote the steady-state waiting time in the ${\rm GI}/{\rm G}/1$ queue. Kingman (1961) showed that $W$, when appropriately scaled, converges in distribution to an exponential random variable as the system's load approaches 1. The original proof of this famous result uses the transform method. Starting from the Laplace transform of the pdf of $W$ (Pollaczek's contour integral representation), Kingman showed convergence of transforms and hence weak convergence of the involved ra…
The upper bound for the convergence rate of the distribution of the state of a queuing system with infinitely many servers is obtained, in the case when the intensity of the incoming flow and the intensity of the service depend on the state of the system. Typos and spelling errors have been corrected in the new version of the text; the content of the text has remained unchanged. ----- Poluchena ocenka sverhu dlia skorosti shodimosti raspredeleniia sostoianiia beskonechnolinejnoj sistemy massovogo obsluzhivaniia v sluchae, kogda intensivnost` vhodiashchego potoka i intensivnost` obsluzhivaniia …
We consider a system of N queues with decentralized load balancing such as power-of-D strategies(where D may depend on N) and generic scheduling disciplines. To measure the dependence of the queues, we use the clan of ancestors, a technique coming from interacting particle systems. Relying in that analysis we prove quantitative estimates on the queues correlations implying propagation of chaos for systems with Markovian arrivals and general service time distribution. This solves the conjecture posed by Bramsom et. al. in [*] concerning the asymptotic independence of the servers in the case of …
We establish a heavy-traffic limit theorem on convergence in distribution for the number of customers in a many-server queue when the number of servers tends to infinity. No critical loading condition is assumed. Generally, the limit process does not have trajectories in the Skorohod space. We give conditions for the convergence to hold in the topology of compact convergence. Some new results for an infinite server are also provided.
We prove several results about the rate of convergence to stationarity, that is, the spectral gap, for the M/M/n queue in the Halfin-Whitt regime. We identify the limiting rate of convergence to steady-state, and discover an asymptotic phase transition that occurs w.r.t. this rate. In particular, we demonstrate the existence of a constant $B^*\approx1.85772$ s.t. when a certain excess parameter $B\in(0,B^*]$, the error in the steady-state approximation converges exponentially fast to zero at rate $\frac{B^2}{4}$. For $B>B^*$, the error in the steady-state approximation converges exponentially …
In this paper, we display methods for the computation of convergence and perturbation bounds for $M_t/M_t/1$ system with balking, catastrophes, server failures and repairs. Based on the logarithmic norm of linear operators, the bounds on the rate of convergence, perturbation bounds, and the main limiting characteristics of the queue-length process are obtained. Finally, we consider the application of all obtained estimates to a specific model.
We study the ergodic properties of a class of controlled stochastic differential equations (SDEs) driven by $α$-stable processes which arise as the limiting equations of multiclass queueing models in the Halfin-Whitt regime that have heavy-tailed arrival processes. When the safety staffing parameter is positive, we show that the SDEs are uniformly ergodic and enjoy a polynomial rate of convergence to the invariant probability measure in total variation, which is uniform over all stationary Markov controls resulting in a locally Lipschitz continuous drift. We also derive a matching lower bound …
We study weak ergodicity, bounds on the rate of convergence, and problems of computing of the limiting characteristics for an inhomogeneous $M_t|M_t|S$ queueing model with possible catastrophes.
We study the convergence of the $M/G/1$ processor-sharing, queue length process in the heavy traffic regime, in the finite variance case. To do so, we combine results pertaining to Lévy processes, branching processes and queuing theory. These results yield the convergence of long excursions of the queue length processes, toward excursions obtained from those of some reflected Brownian motion with drift, after taking the image of their local time process by the Lamperti transformation. We also show, via excursion theoretic arguments, that this entails the convergence of the entire processes to …
We discuss weak convergence of the number of busy servers in a $G/G/\infty$ queue in the $J_1$-topology on the Skorokhod space. We prove two functional limit theorems, with random and nonrandom centering, respectively, thereby solving two open problems stated in Mikosch and Resnick (2006}. A new integral representation for the limit Gaussian process is given.
We study the load balancing system operating under Join the Shortest Queue (JSQ) in the many-server heavy-traffic regime. If $N$ is the number of servers, we let the difference between the total service rate and the total arrival rate be $N^{1-α}$ with $α>0$. We show that for $α>4$ the average queue length behaves similarly to the classical heavy-traffic regime. Specifically, we prove that the distribution of the average queue length multiplied by $N^{1-α}$ converges to an exponential random variable. Moreover, we show a result analogous to state space collapse. We provide two proofs for our r…
We study in this paper a variation of the acclaimed CSMA random access protocol. We will focus on the case where back-off rates at each node is polynomial in the size of the queue. Under a condition relating the exponent in the polynomial rates and the geometry of the interference graph, we prove convergence of the scaled process to a deterministic fluid limit up to the time a queue reaches $0$ on the fluid scale . We outline the difficulties arising at that time and solve them in the case of a complete interference graph. This paper relies on a new method to obtain a fully coupled stochastic …
In this paper, we prove the exponential convergence of the non-stationary moment of a random variable that defines the virtual waiting time in the mass service system M\G\1\ $\infty $, where the distribution of the service time satisfies the Kramer condition and system load factor $ρ< 1$, to the value of the virtual waiting time in the stationary mode in this system. We consider the virtual waiting time as a regenerative process, which regenerative periods is the sum of busy period and period of time, when the system is free. We show, that the busy period in such system satisfies the Kramer co…
RED (Random Early Detection) has been suggested when multiple TCP sessions are multiplexed through a bottleneck buffer. The idea is to detect congestion before the buffer overflows by dropping or marking packets with a probability that increases with the queue length. The objectives are reduced packet loss, higher throughput, reduced delay and reduced delay variation achieved through an equitable distribution of packet loss and reduced synchronization. Baccelli, McDonald and Reynier [Performance Evaluation 11 (2002) 77--97] have proposed a fluid model for multiple TCP connections in the conges…
We study a general $k$ dimensional infinite server queues process with Markov switching, Poisson arrivals and where the service times are fat tailed with index $α\in (0,1)$. When the arrival rate is sped up by a factor $n^γ$, the transition probabilities of the underlying Markov chain are divided by $n^γ$ and the service times are divided by $n$, we identify two regimes (''fast arrivals'', when $γ>α$, and ''equilibrium'', when $γ=α$) in which we prove that a properly rescaled process converges pointwise in distribution to some limiting process. In a third ''slow arrivals'' regime, $γ<α$, we sh…
We consider many-server queueing systems with heterogeneous exponential servers and renewal arrivals. The service rate of each server is a random variable drawn from a given distribution. We develop a framework for analyzing the heavy traffic limit of these queues in random environment using probability measure-valued stochastic processes. We introduce the measure-valued fairness process which denotes the proportion of cumulative idleness experienced by servers whose rates fall in a Borel subset of the support of the service rates. It can be shown that these fairness processes do not converge …
Customers arrive at rate N times alpha on a network of N single server infinite buffer queues, choose L queues uniformly, join the shortest one, and are served there in turn at rate beta. We let N go to infinity.We prove a functional central limit theorem (CLT) for the tails of the empirical measures of the queue occupations,in a Hilbert space with the weak topology, with limit given by an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The a priori assumption is that the initial data converge.This completes a recent functional CLT in equilibrium result for which convergence for the initial data was not known in …
This paper studies a scheduling control problem for a single-server multiclass queueing network in heavy traffic, operating in a changing environment. The changing environment is modeled as a finite state Markov process that modulates the arrival and service rates in the system. Various cases are considered: fast changing environment, fixed environment and slow changing environment. In each of the cases, using weak convergence analysis, in particular functional limit theorems for renewal processes and ergodic Markov processes, it is shown that an appropriate "averaged" version of the classical…
In this paper one presents method for the computation of convergence bounds for four classes of multiserver queueing systems, described by inhomogeneous Markov chains. Specifically one considers inhomogeneous $M/M/S$ queueing system with possibly state-dependent arrival and service intensities and additionally possible batch arrivals and batch service. The unified approach based on logarithmic norm of linear operators for obtaining sharp upper and lower bounds on the rate of convergence and corresponding sharp perturbation bounds is described. As a side result, one shows by virtue of numerical…
We suggest an approach to obtaining general two-sided bounds on the rate of convergence in terms of special "weighted" norms related to total variation. Some important classes of continuous-time Markov chains are considered: birth-death-catastrophes processes, queueing models with batch arrivals and group services, chains with absorption in zero.
We consider a stochastic network with mobile users in a heavy-traffic regime. We derive the scaling limit of the multi-dimensional queue length process and prove a form of spatial state space collapse. The proof exploits a recent result by Lambert and Simatos which provides a general principle to establish scaling limits of regenerative processes based on the convergence of their excursions. We also prove weak convergence of the sequences of stationary joint queue length distributions and stationary sojourn times.
In this paper, we give quantitative bounds on the $f$-total variation distance from convergence of an Harris recurrent Markov chain on an arbitrary under drift and minorisation conditions implying ergodicity at a sub-geometric rate. These bounds are then specialized to the stochastically monotone case, covering the case where there is no minimal reachable element. The results are illustrated on two examples from queueing theory and Markov Chain Monte Carlo.
We give strong bounds for the rate of convergence of the regenerative process distribution to the stationary distribution in the total variation metric. These bounds are obtained by using coupling method. We propose this method for obtaining such bounds for the queueing regenerative processes.
In this paper we provide convergence analysis for a class of Brownian queues in tandem by establishing an exponential drift condition. A consequence is the uniform exponential ergodicity for these multidimensional diffusions, including the O'Connell-Yor process. A list of open problems are also presented.
An elementary and rigorous justification of Dynkin's identity with an extended infinitesimal operator based on the idea of a complete probability formula is given for queueing systems with a single server and discontinuous intensities of arrivals and serving.
We study a sequence of single server queues with customer abandonment (GI/GI/1+GI) under heavy traffic. The patience time distributions vary with the sequence, which allows for a wider scope of applications. It is known ([20, 18]) that the sequence of scaled offered waiting time processes converges weakly to a reflecting diffusion process with non-linear drift, as the traffic intensity approaches one. In this paper, we further show that the sequence of stationary distributions and moments of the offered waiting times, with diffusion scaling, converge to those of the limit diffusion process. Th…
In the supermarket model there are n queues, each with a unit rate server. Customers arrive in a Poisson process at rate λn, where 0<λ<1. Each customer chooses d > 2 queues uniformly at random, and joins a shortest one. It is known that the equilibrium distribution of a typical queue length converges to a certain explicit limiting distribution as n -> oo. We quantify the rate of convergence by showing that the total variation distance between the equilibrium distribution and the limiting distribution is essentially of order n^{-1}; and we give a corresponding result for systems starting from q…
In this brief paper we find computable exponential convergence rates for a large class of stochastically ordered Markov processes. We extend the result of Lund, Meyn, and Tweedie (1996), who found exponential convergence rates for stochastically ordered Markov processes starting from a fixed initial state, by allowing for a random initial condition that is also stochastically ordered. Our bounds are formulated in terms of moment-generating functions of hitting times. To illustrate our result, we find an explicit exponential convergence rate for an M/M/1 queue beginning in equilibrium and then …
We consider the well-known problem of the computation of the (limiting) time-dependent performance characteristics of one-dimensional continuous-time birth and death processes on $\mathbb{Z}$ with time varying and possible state-dependent intensities. First in the literature upper bounds on the rate of convergence along with one new concentration inequality are provided. Upper bounds for the error of truncation are also given. Condition under which a limiting (time-dependent) distribution exists is formulated but relies on the quantities that need to be guessed in each use-case. The developed …
We consider a large queueing system that consists of many strategic servers that are weakly interacting. Each server processes jobs from its unique critically loaded buffer and controls the rate of arrivals and departures associated with its queue to minimize its expected cost. The rates and the cost functions in addition to depending on the control action, can depend, in a symmetric fashion, on the size of the individual queue and the empirical measure of the states of all queues in the system. In order to determine an approximate Nash equilibrium for this finite player game we construct a La…
This paper studies the rate of convergence of the power-of-two-choices, a celebrated randomized load balancing algorithm for many-server queueing systems, to its mean field limit. The convergence to the mean-field limit has been proved in the literature, but the rate of convergence remained to be an open problem. This paper establishes that the sequence of stationary distributions, indexed by $M,$ the number of servers in the system, converges in mean-square to its mean-field limit with rate $O\left(\frac{(\log M)^3 (\log\log M)^2}{M}\right).$
