Properties of optimal hop-by-hop allocation policies in networks with multiple transmitters and linear equal holding costs

Author

Bournas, Redha M. ; Beutler, Frederick J. ; Teneketzis, Demosthenis

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Volume

36

Issue

12

fYear

1991

fDate

12/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1450

Lastpage

1463

Abstract

Flow control between one receiving node and its adjacent transmitting nodes in a computer network is modeled as a Markov decision problem. By deriving several qualitative properties of an optimal allocation policy, it is shown that finding dynamic optimal allocations for only T states suffices to completely describe an optimal allocation policy. When the number of transmitters M=2, for all but one of the T states there are only two allocations that are candidates for optimality. It is desirable to extend this property to M>2. However, it appears that the technique used for M =2 does not generalize to M>2

Keywords

Markov processes; computer networks; decision theory; packet switching; queueing theory; Markov decision problem; computer network; dynamic optimal allocations; linear equal holding costs; multiple transmitters; optimal hop-by-hop allocation policies; packet switching; Character generation; Communication channels; Communication networks; Communication system control; Communication system traffic control; Computer networks; Cost function; Intelligent networks; Traffic control; Transmitters;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9286

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/9.106160

Filename

106160