34 research outputs found
Diffusion models and steady-state approximations for exponentially ergodic Markovian queues
Motivated by queues with many servers, we study Brownian steady-state
approximations for continuous time Markov chains (CTMCs). Our approximations
are based on diffusion models (rather than a diffusion limit) whose
steady-state, we prove, approximates that of the Markov chain with notable
precision. Strong approximations provide such "limitless" approximations for
process dynamics. Our focus here is on steady-state distributions, and the
diffusion model that we propose is tractable relative to strong approximations.
Within an asymptotic framework, in which a scale parameter is taken large,
a uniform (in the scale parameter) Lyapunov condition imposed on the sequence
of diffusion models guarantees that the gap between the steady-state moments of
the diffusion and those of the properly centered and scaled CTMCs shrinks at a
rate of . Our proofs build on gradient estimates for solutions of the
Poisson equations associated with the (sequence of) diffusion models and on
elementary martingale arguments. As a by-product of our analysis, we explore
connections between Lyapunov functions for the fluid model, the diffusion model
and the CTMC.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AAP984 the Annals of
Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Simple and explicit bounds for multi-server queues with (and sometimes better) scaling
We consider the FCFS queue, and prove the first simple and explicit
bounds that scale as (and sometimes better). Here
denotes the corresponding traffic intensity. Conceptually, our results can be
viewed as a multi-server analogue of Kingman's bound. Our main results are
bounds for the tail of the steady-state queue length and the steady-state
probability of delay. The strength of our bounds (e.g. in the form of tail
decay rate) is a function of how many moments of the inter-arrival and service
distributions are assumed finite. More formally, suppose that the inter-arrival
and service times (distributed as random variables and respectively)
have finite th moment for some Let (respectively )
denote (respectively ). Then
our bounds (also for higher moments) are simple and explicit functions of
, and
only. Our bounds scale gracefully even when the number of
servers grows large and the traffic intensity converges to unity
simultaneously, as in the Halfin-Whitt scaling regime. Some of our bounds scale
better than in certain asymptotic regimes. More precisely,
they scale as multiplied by an inverse polynomial in These results formalize the intuition that bounds should be tighter
in light traffic as well as certain heavy-traffic regimes (e.g. with
fixed and large). In these same asymptotic regimes we also prove bounds for
the tail of the steady-state number in service.
Our main proofs proceed by explicitly analyzing the bounding process which
arises in the stochastic comparison bounds of amarnik and Goldberg for
multi-server queues. Along the way we derive several novel results for suprema
of random walks and pooled renewal processes which may be of independent
interest. We also prove several additional bounds using drift arguments (which
have much smaller pre-factors), and make several conjectures which would imply
further related bounds and generalizations
Stein's method for steady-state diffusion approximations
Diffusion approximations have been a popular tool for performance analysis in
queueing theory, with the main reason being tractability and computational
efficiency. This dissertation is concerned with establishing theoretical
guarantees on the performance of steady-state diffusion approximations of
queueing systems. We develop a modular framework based on Stein's method that
allows us to establish error bounds, or convergence rates, for the
approximations. We apply this framework three queueing systems: the Erlang-C,
Erlang-A, and systems.
The former two systems are simpler and allow us to showcase the full
potential of the framework. Namely, we prove that both Wasserstein and
Kolmogorov distances between the stationary distribution of a normalized
customer count process, and that of an appropriately defined diffusion process
decrease at a rate of , where is the offered load. Futhermore,
these error bounds are \emph{universal}, valid in any load condition from
lightly loaded to heavily loaded. For the Erlang-C model, we also show that a
diffusion approximation with state-dependent diffusion coefficient can achieve
a rate of convergence of , which is an order of magnitude faster when
compared to approximations with constant diffusion coefficients.Comment: PhD Thesi