An efficientsolutiontoaretrialqueuefortheperformabilityevaluationofDHCP

The DynamicHostConfigurationProtocol(DHCP)isdesignedtoprovideanautomaticmechanismforthe allocation, configurationandmanagementofIPaddressesandTCP/IPprotocolstackparametersofcom- puters anddevicesinIPnetworks.TheimportantfeatureofDHCPisa“dynamicallocation”mechanism, which assignsanIPaddresstoaclientforalimitedperiodoftime(calledaleasetime).Therefore,a previously allocatedIPaddresscanautomaticallybeassignedtoanotherhostbyaDHCPserveruponthe expiration oftheleasetimeifahostdoesnotrenewtheuseofanallocatedIPaddress. This paperproposesaretrialqueueingmodeltoapproximatetheperformabilityoftheDHCPdynamic allocation mechanism.Anefficientcomputationalalgorithmisdevelopedtocalculatethesteadystate probabilities ofacontinuoustimediscretestateMarkovprocess.Acomparisonofourapproximatemodel with adetailedsimulationmodeloftheDHCPdynamicallocationmechanismshowsanexcellentagree- ment betweentheanalyticalandthesimulationresults.Theimpactoftheleasetimeparameteronthe performability oftheDHCPdynamicallocationmechanismisalsoillustratedthroughanumericalstudy.