Analysis of tandem polling queues with finite buffers

Abstract

We analyze a tandem polling queue with two stations operating under three different polling strategies, namely: (1) Independent polling, (2) Synchronous polling, and (3) Out-of-sync polling. Under Markovian assumptions of arrival and service times, we conduct an exact analysis using Matrix Geometric method to determine system throughput, mean queue lengths, and mean waiting times. Through numerical experiments, we compare the performance of the three polling strategies and the effect of buffer sizes on performance. We observe that the independent polling strategy generally performs better than the other strategies, however, under certain settings of product asymmetry, other strategies yield better performance.