Storage problems when demand is "all or nothing"

Abstract : An inventory of physical goods or storage space (in a communications system buffer, for instance) often experiences 'all or nothing' demand: if a demand of random size D can be immediately and entirely filled from stock it is satisfied, but otherwise it vanishes. Probabilistic properties of the resulting inventory level are discussed analytically, both for the single buffer and for multiple buffer problems. Numerical results are presented. (Author)