English

On the maximum queue length in the supermarket model

Probability 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

There are nn queues, each with a single server. Customers arrive in a Poisson process at rate λn\lambda n, where 0<λ<10<\lambda<1. Upon arrival each customer selects d2d\geq2 servers uniformly at random, and joins the queue at a least-loaded server among those chosen. Service times are independent exponentially distributed random variables with mean 1. We show that the system is rapidly mixing, and then investigate the maximum length of a queue in the equilibrium distribution. We prove that with probability tending to 1 as nn\to\infty the maximum queue length takes at most two values, which are lnlnn/lnd+O(1)\ln\ln n/\ln d+O(1).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0605639,
  title  = {On the maximum queue length in the supermarket model},
  author = {Malwina J. Luczak and Colin McDiarmid},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0605639},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/00911790500000710 in the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)