Efficient performance analysis of asymmetric finite buffer multichannel networks

In this paper the authors present an efficient approximate analysis of asymmetric LAN communication systems, consisting of N nodes with non-homogeneous finite buffer sizes, arrival rates and transmission probabilities, interconnected through C channels. Due to the finite number of buffers and channels and the system asymmetry, an exact analysis becomes prohibitively complex for large values of N. The authors therefore propose to approximate the exact system behavior by analyzing each node separately and assuming that the competition for the common communication resource is reflected only in the calculation of the successful transmission probabilities. This calculation uses the other nodes' marginal state probabilties and not any joint probabilities, thus substantially reducing the computational complexity. In spite of the reduced complexity, the presented approach produces very accurate results and can be applied to a wide range of communication systems. The authors demonstrate its use for analyzing systems with constant transmission time which requires the solution of N equations, and for systems with a variable transmission time, involving the solution of equations, where is the buffer capacity of node .