Commuting matrices in the sojourn time analysis of MAP/MAP/1 queues

Queues with Markovian arrival and service processes, i.e., MAP/MAP/1 queues, have been useful in the analysis of computer and communication systems and different representations for their sojourn time distribution have been derived. More specifically, the class of MAP/MAP/1 queues lies at the intersection of the class of QBD queues and the class of semi-Markovian queues. While QBD queues have an order $N^2$ matrix exponential representation for their sojourn time distribution, where $N$ is the size of the background continuous time Markov chain, the sojourn time distribution of the latter class allows for a more compact representation of order $N$. In this paper we unify these two results and show that the key step exists in establishing the commutativity of some fundamental matrices involved in the analysis of the MAP/MAP/1 queue. We prove, using two different approaches, that the required matrices do commute and identify several other sets of commuting matrices. Finally, we generalize some of the results to queueing systems with batch arrivals and services.