Instability of LIFO Queueing Networks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that LIFO queueing networks with renewal arrivals can be unstable, contrasting with other disciplines like FIFO, PS, and IS, which remain stable under similar conditions.

Contribution

It constructs explicit examples showing LIFO networks can be unstable with renewal arrivals, challenging the assumption of stability under broader conditions.

Findings

LIFO networks can become unstable with renewal arrivals.

FIFO, PS, and IS disciplines remain stable under renewal arrivals.

Stability theory for classical disciplines may not be universally applicable.

Abstract

Under the last-in, first-out (LIFO) discipline, jobs arriving later at a class always receive priority of service over earlier arrivals at any class belonging to the same station. Subcritical LIFO queueing networks with Poisson external arrivals are known to be stable, but an open problem has been whether this is also the case when external arrivals are given by renewal processes. Here, we show that this weaker assumption is not sufficient for stability by constructing a family of examples where the number of jobs in the network increases to infinity over time. This behavior contrasts with that for the other classical disciplines: processor sharing (PS), infinite server (IS), and first-in, first-out (FIFO), which are stable under general conditions on the renewals of external arrivals. Together with LIFO, PS and IS constitute the classical symmetric disciplines; with the inclusion of FIFO, these disciplines constitute the classical homogeneous disciplines. Our examples show that a general theory for stability of either family is doubtful.