XMGM: performance modeling using matrix geometric techniques

Over the last two decades a considerable amount of effort has been put in the development and application of matrix geometric techniques for the analysis of queueing systems of which the (embedded) Markov chain exhibits a regular structure. Most of this work however has been presented in either a mathematical context or an a purely application-oriented context. In this paper we present XMGM, a performance analysis tool which allows its users to easily specify queueing systems in terms of interarrival and service time distributions. XMGM then takes care of the translation of this description to an underlying Markov chain that exhibits a matrix geometric solution. Subsequently, it takes care of the derivation of the measures specified by the user. With XMGM models are specified via C procedure calls. This turns out to be a very flexible approach for modelling queueing systems; it also allows for the easy evaluation of models over parameter ranges