Solving layered queueing networks of large client-server systems with symmetric replication

Large distributed client-server systems often contain subsystems which are either identical to each other, or very nearly so, and this simplifies the system description for planning purposes. These replicated components and subsystems all have the same workload and performance parameters. It is known how to exploit this symmetry to simplify the solution of some kinds of performance models, using state aggregation in Markov Chains. This work considers the same problem for layered queueing models, using mean value analysis. The mean values are found for each group of replicas just once, and then are inserted appropriately into the solution of the system as a whole. An algorithm has been implemented in the Layered Queueing Network Solver (LQNS), including approximations to deal with interactions among the replicas, and is evaluated for accuracy and for efficiency. The resulting solver is insensitive (in time of solution) to the number of replicas in a group, and can efficiently calculate waiting times and throughputs for systems with tens of thousands of nodes and processes.