Kendall's notation

In queueing theory, Kendall's notation (or sometimes Kendall notation) is the standard system used to describe and classify the queueing model that a queueing system corresponds to. First suggested by D. G. Kendall in 1953 as a 3 factor "A/B/C" notation system for chacterising queues, it has since been extended to include up to 6 different factors.

The notation now appears in most standard reference work about queueing theory. e.g. Tijms, H.C, "Algorithmic Analysis of Queues", Chapter 9 in A First Course in Stochastic Models, Wiley, Chichester, 2003.]

Notation

: A queue is described in shorthand notation by "A/B/C/K/N/D" or the more concise "A/B/C". In this concise version, it is assumed "K" = ∞, "N" = ∞ and "D" = FIFO.

A: The arrival process

A code describing the arrival process. The codes used are:

:Note: An alternative notation practice is to record the queue discipline before the population and system capacity, with or without enclosing parenthesis. This does not normally cause confusion because the notation is different.

References

External links

*http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/vol4/wll1/main.htm
*http://new-destiny.co.uk/andrew/past_work/queueing_theory/Andy/kendall.html
*http://www.cs.wm.edu/~riska/main/node12.html
*http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1055043
*A [http://www.google.com/search?q=Kendall%27s+notation Google search] gives many others.