Performance of cell loss priority management schemes in a single server queue

The throughput optimality of priority management strategies in a single buffer has been studied for a general aggregate arrival law. The tight upper bounds found are useful to understand optimality in the utilization of specific priority schemes such as push-out buffer (POB) and partial buffer sharing (PBS). This paper further focuses on the maximum allowable load ρ_max versus the priority mix α for a PBS and a random push-out buffer (RPOB) of size K for a wide variety of arrival processes. The role of priorities in a special type of bursty arrivals, the compound Poisson process with constant burst length and random priority assignment within the burst is found to be less pronounced than that of ‘pure’ Poisson arrivals. On the other hand, the results for ON–OFF cell arrivals modelled by a MMPP(2), MMPP(3), and higher order Markov modulated processes (MMP) closely follow the behaviour of the maximum allowable load in the RPOB with Poisson arrivals, however, scaled to lower loads. The results indicate that the priority mix distribution within the aggregate arrival flow influences the shape of ρ_max(α)-curve more than the aggregate arrival distribution itself. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.