This classic in stochastic network modelling broke new ground when it was published in 1979, and it remains a superb introduction to reversibility and its applications. The book concerns behaviour in equilibrium of vector stochastic processes or stochastic networks. When a stochastic network is reversible its analysis is greatly simplified, and the first chapter is devoted to a discussion of the concept of reversibility. The rest of the book focuses on the various applications of reversibility and the extent to which the assumption of reversibility can be relaxed without destroying the...

Communication networks underpin our modern world, and provide fascinating and challenging examples of large-scale stochastic systems. Randomness arises in communication systems at many levels: for example, the initiation and termination times of calls in a telephone network, or the statistical structure of the arrival streams of packets at routers in the Internet. How can routing, flow control and connection acceptance algorithms be designed to work well in uncertain and random environments? This compact introduction illustrates how stochastic models can be used to shed light on important...