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On the Assignment of Customers to Parallel Queues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2009

Arie Hordijk  and
Ger Koole
Arie Hordijk
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Leiden, P.O. Box 9512 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
Ger Koole
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Leiden, P.O. Box 9512 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
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Abstract

This paper considers routing to parallel queues in which each queue has its own single server and service times are exponential with nonidentical parameters. We give conditions on the cost function such that the optimal policy assigns customers to a faster queue when that server has a shorter queue. The queues may have finite buffers, and the arrival process can be controlled and can depend on the state and routing policy. Hence our results on the structure of the optimal policy are also true when the assigning control is in the “last” node of a network of service centers. Using dynamic programming we show that our optimality results are true in distribution.

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Type
Articles
Information
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 495 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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