We consider a fluid model similar to that of Kella and Whitt, but with a buffer having finite capacity K. The connections between the infinite buffer fluid model and the G/G/1 queue established by Kella and Whitt are extended to the finite buffer case: it is shown that the stationary distribution of the buffer content is related to the stationary distribution of the finite dam. We also derive a number of new results for the latter model. In particular, an asymptotic expansion for the loss fraction is given for the case of subexponential service times. The stationary buffer content distribution of the fluid model is also related to that of the corresponding model with infinite buffer size, by showing that the two corresponding probability measures are proportional on [0, K) if the silence periods are exponentially distributed. These results are applied to obtain large buffer asymptotics for the loss fraction and the mean buffer content when the fluid queue is fed by N On–Off sources with subexponential on-periods. The asymptotic results show a significant influence of heavy-tailed input characteristics on the performance of the fluid queue.
