Network queueing systems – with Industrial Applications

Citation

Hutton, D.M. (2004), "Network queueing systems – with Industrial Applications", Kybernetes, Vol. 33 No. 9/10, pp. 1547-1548. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920410556151

There can be no better foundation for a book concerned with network queueing systems than the published research papers of its authors and their presentations at conferences. The text will have assimilated the responses of the research community and of the many peer reviewers. The authors have also had experience of teaching their subject at various levels and this soon shows in the development of their text. Also of great importance to the reader is the promise that it will deal with industrial applications. It does this with particular reference to computer systems. No book title can adequately define a book's content and authors of even the most elementary texts need to define their aims and discuss the way in which their exposition has been planned. In this book, queueing systems are initially described and defined and the authors chosen approach discussed. Cyberneticians and systemists are well aware of the importance of Queueing Theory, and the fact that there has been decades of research carried out so that the problems that occur in so many areas can be tackled. We are all concerned about the solution of the queueing problems and, in particular the right methodology to apply.

The authors of this monograph tell us in their Preface that their research has been biased towards tandem queues and that their book is an attempt to study them not only for obtaining exact solutions but for the derivation of approximate solutions numerically.

However, the aim of this text is to provide a framework of simulation studies for the situations where exact soltions cannot be derived. The contents are arranged into nine chapters, each clearly divided into sections that serve to introduce new topics. In the main this works well but in some instances there is a lack of continuity in the development. Summaries or concluding remarks are included at the end of most chapters. One is indeed curious as to which of the authors was responsible for the individual ones. There is no doubt that the authors’ research on tandem systems and their applications comes through in so many of the chosen application areas. This is evidenced by the choice of chapter topics viz: Departure process in Tandem Queues; Approximation of Tandem Queues. But other chapters on: Ordering in the network of queues; Surrogate queueing systems; computatation of statistical distribution of delay time for Gl/G/1 systems provide much of value. The final chapter Cybernetic Approaches to Computer Communications Networks proved to be very readable. A useful Appendix and a comprehensive bibliography are included.

Readers of this journal will have realised that although this book tackles what the authors describe as a “burning topic in computer communications and various problems of industrial management” it does, as would be expected, do so in a mathematical … manner. Engineers may well have the background need to follow the developments but many cyberneticians and systemists would flounder. It will be argued that there is no better way to solve these problems other than in this way. For those already engaged in research and real‐life problem‐solving using queueing theory it offers an excellent presentation of both theory and practical approaches to queueing problems.

The monograph was made possible by the support of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to the Society of Management Science and Applied Cybernetics (SOMAC). For further information the publishers can be contacted at: sapub@ndb.vsnl.net.in