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Regenerative Simulation for Queueing Networks with Exponential or Heavier Tail Arrival Distributions

Multiclass open queueing networks find wide applications in communication, computer and fabrication networks. Often one is interested in steady-state performance measures associated with these networks. Conceptually, under mild conditions, a regenerative structure exists in multiclass networks, making them amenable to regenerative simulation for estimating the steady-state performance measures. However, typically, identification of a regenerative structure in these networks is difficult. A well known exception is when all the interarrival times are exponentially distributed, where the instants corresponding to customer arrivals to an empty network constitute a regenerative structure. In this paper, we consider networks where the interarrival times are generally distributed but have exponential or heavier tails. We show that these distributions can be decomposed into a mixture of sums of independent random variables such that at least one of the components is exponentially distributed. This allows an easily implementable embedded regenerative structure in the Markov process. We show that under mild conditions on the network primitives, the regenerative mean and standard deviation estimators are consistent and satisfy a joint central limit theorem useful for constructing asymptotically valid confidence intervals. We also show that amongst all such interarrival time decompositions, the one with the largest mean exponential component minimizes the asymptotic variance of the standard deviation estimator.