An approximate performance analysis of interconnected token-passing rings

An analysis of the performance, in terms of average message delay, is presented for a system of interconnected ring networks. The system is hierarchical, with local rings served by a high-speed backbone ring through gateway queues. In both the local and the backbone rings, the access technique employed is token passing. Service disciplines, with and without priority, have been studied. In the former, priority is given to inter-ring traffic over local traffic. The study makes use of certain results on average delay in systems where the customer initiating a busy period receives special service for the M/G/1 queue with nonpreemptive priority and for the G/G/1 queue. The analysis, which involved several approximations, was verified by simulation