Methods for the Analysis of Network-wide Models: Polling Models

Polling models are used throughout this book to represent the behavior of MAC protocols with a cyclic behavior, such as Token Ring (see Chapter 1) and FDDI (see Chapter 5). To guarantee fair access to all the network stations and to limit access delay, MAC protocols with a cyclic behavior are based on limited service disciplines. For this reason hereafter only polling systems with an l-limited (gated or exhaustive) service discipline are taken into consideration. For a complete overview of the analysis of polling systems with gated or exhaustive service disciplines see Takagi ([145], [146], [147], [151]).