Stochastic Networks (The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications)

In the past decade the proliferation of local and global communication networks for computer and human communication, the development of parallel computers with large numbers of processors, and the design of flexible and robust manufacturing systems have spurred major advances in our understanding of queuing volume reviews recent progress. While research on queuing networks uses many of the traditional queuing theory insights, it is more concerned with how network components interact than with detailed models of how an individual queue behaves. In the last few years there have been some surprises, in particular with regard to the conditions for stability of multiclass queuing networks, which is covered in this book. It also covers the challenges reflected Brownian motion has set both as a mathematical object and as a modelling paradigm; the usefulness of ideas from the interacting particle system world; the application of large deviation theory; and the developing connections with optimization and dynamical systems theory.