(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002)
Wardi, Yorai Y.; Riley, George F.
This paper considers congestion-related performance metrics in tandem networks of Stochastic Fluid Models
(SFMs), and derives their IPA gradient estimators with
respect to buffer sizes. Specifically, the performance metrics
in question are the total loss volume and the cumulative
buffer workload (buffer contents), and the control
parameter consists of buffer limits at both the node
where the performance is measured and at an upstream
node. The IPA estimators are unbiased and nonparametric,
and hence can be computed on-line from field measurements
as well as off-line from simulation experiments.
The IPA derivatives are applied to packet-based networks,
where simulation results support the theoretical developments.
Possible applications to congestion management in telecommunications networks are discussed.