On the sojourn times for many-queue head-of-the-line processor-sharing systems with permanent customers (Q1298741)

We consider a single server system consisting of \(n\) queues with different types of customers (Poisson streams) and \(k\) permanent customers. The permanent customers and those at the head of the queues are served in processor-sharing by the service facility (head-of-the-line processor-sharing). The stability condition and a pseudo work conservation law will be given for arbitrary service time distributions; for exponential service times a pseudo conservation law for the mean sojourn times can be derived. In case of two queues and exponential service times, the generating function of the station occupancy distribution satisfies a functional equation being a Riemann-Hilbert problem which can be reduced to a Dirichlet problem for a circle. The solution yields the mean sojourn times as an elliptic integral, which can be computed numerically very efficiently. In case of \(n\geq 2\) a numerical algorithm for computing the performance measures is presented, which is efficient for \(n\geq 3\). Since for \(n\geq 4\) an exact analytical or/and numerical treatment is too complex a heuristic approximation for the mean sojourn times of the different types of customers is given, which in case of a (completely) symmetric system is exact. The numerical and simulation results show that, over a wide range of parameters, the approximation works well.