On the Design of Optimal Policy for Sharing Finite Buffers

An important analytic model of finite buffer systems is a multiclass single queue with typed servers. In the context of such a model, we address the problem of selecting an optimal buffer sharing policy. We show that with respect to weighted throughput, an optimal policy must be a stationary delayed resolution policy. An iterative procedure based upon the policy iteration method for Markov processes with rewards is used to efficiently search for the optimal delayed resolution policy for a given set of system parameters. A performance comparison of the optimal delayed resolution policy with other well-known buffer sharing policies is also provided.