Analysis of exhaustive limited service for token ring networks

摘要

Token ring operation is well-understood in the cases of exhaustive, gated, gated limited, and ordinary cyclic service. There is no current data, however, on queueing models for the exhaustive limited service type. This service type differs from the others in that there is a preset maximum (omega) on the number of packets which may be transmitted per token reception, and packets which arrive after token reception may still be transmitted if the preset packet limit has not been reached. Exhaustive limited service is important since it closely approximates a timed token service discipline (the approximation becomes exact if packet lengths are constant). A method for deriving the z-transforms of the distributions of the number of packets present at both token departure and token arrival for a system using exhaustive limited service is presented. This allows for the derivation of a formula for mean queueing delay and queue lengths. The method is theoretically applicable to any omega. Fortunately, as the value of omega becomes large (typically values on the order of omega = 8 are considered large), the exhaustive limited service discipline closely approximates an exhaustive service discipline.