Modeling processes that include the following major states are a backbone of queueing theory: the last customer’s waiting time in a queue; estimated customer service duration (the system efficiency or capacity); the analyzed arrival and service patterns; queue discipline when forming the queue; the number of service channels in case of more queues waiting for a single server; and the queue stages to reach the final stage when the customers leave the system one by one.

The reasons for customer dissatisfaction while waiting lie in the provider’s resources, which quite frequently do not support enough servers; in the service quality or the staff competence; and sometimes in a lack of organizational flexibility dependent on the queue length. In the simplest words, all such factors are combined in models that are subject to optimization. Apart from computing, especially networking, this knowledge is applied in other areas, including telecommunication; offices; shops; intelligent transportation systems; and traffic, road, and airline engineering.

This fourth edition has, according to the authors, been extended by topics such as “retrial queues, approximation for queueing networks, numerical inversion of transforms, and determining the appropriate number of servers to balance quality and cost of service.” The major states of the queueing systems, as well as their applications, are discussed in a number of popular models, for example, birth-death processes, multi-server queues, and finite-source queues.

The organization of the book is adequate. At the beginning, the most general issues of queueing theory--process characteristics, stochastic processes, and Markov chains--are presented, as well as the QtsPlus software that supplements and supports the course. The authors then present and analyze Markovian queueing models. In the next stage, they examine types of networks to prepare the reader for the following two stages, which concern arrival and service patterns. The last three chapters deal with statistical issues. At the end of the book, the appendices explain the meaning of the symbols used and present the basics of some function types, differential and difference equations, and, finally, the QtsPlus software installation guide. The book is accompanied by a helpful solutions manual with detailed explanations of some problems placed at the end of each chapter.

Despite its title, the book is rather advanced, so it is appropriate for practitioners, those in academia, and upper-class students. However, any reader will benefit from the concise introductions to the problems, the detailed descriptions supported with step-by-step formulas, the solutions provided by the manual, and the QtsPlus software.