Approximate analysis of priority scheduling systems using stochastic reward nets

Presents a performance analysis of a heterogeneous multiprocessor system where tasks may arrive from Poisson sources as well as by spawning and probabilistic branching of other tasks. Non-preemptive priority scheduling is used between different tasks. Stochastic reward nets are used as the system model, and are solved analytically by generating the underlying continuous-time Markov chain. An approximation technique is used, that is based on fixed-point iteration to avoid the problem of a large underlying Markov chain. The iteration scheme works reasonably well, and the existence of a fixed point for the iterative scheme is guaranteed under certain conditions.<>