A Statistical Mechanical Approach to Systems Analysis

The maximum entropy principle is used as the criterion for calculating the equilibrium state probabilities of a queuing or network system in which service rates are exponentially distributed. A configuration-independent partition function is given as the solution to this network problem; from this function the important properties of the system may be derived. Simple and well known examples are used to illustrate the method. A phenomenon similar to the phase transition of statistical mechanics is observed in a queuing model.