Building on classical queueing theory mainly dealing with single node
queueing systems, networks of queues, or stochastic networks has been a
field of intensive research over the last three decades. Whereas the
first breakthrough in queueing network theory was initiated by problems
and work in operations research, the second breakthrough, as well as
subsequent major work in the area, was closely related to computer
science, particularly to performance analysis of complex systems in
computer and communication science.
The text reports on recent research and development in the area. It is
centered around explicit expressions for the steady behavior of discrete
time queueing networks and gives a moderately positive answer to the
question of whether there can be a product form calculus in discrete
time. Originating from a course given by the author at Hamburg
University, this book is ideally suited as a text for courses on
discrete time stochastic networks.