Kelly and Jackson networks with interchangeable, cooperative servers

Abstract In open Kelly and Jackson networks, servers are assigned to individual stations, serving customers only where they are assigned. We investigate the performance of modified networks where servers cooperate. A server who would be idle at the assigned station will serve customers at another station, speeding up service there. We assume interchangeable servers: the service rate of a server at a station depends only on the station, not the server. This gives work conservation, which is used in various ways. We investigate three levels of server cooperation, from full cooperation, where all servers are busy when there is work to do anywhere in the network, to one-way cooperation, where a server assigned to one station may assist a server at another, but not the converse. We obtain the same stability conditions for each level and, in a series of examples, obtain substantial performance improvement with server cooperation, even when stations before modification are moderately loaded.