Book excerpt: Intended for a first course in performance evaluation, this is a self-contained treatment covering all aspects of queuing theory. It starts by introducing readers to the terminology and usefulness of queueing theory and continues by considering Markovian queues in equilibrium, Littles law, reversibility, transient analysis, and computation, plus the M/G/1 queuing system. It then moves on to cover networks of queues, and concludes with techniques for numerical solutions, a discussion of the PANACEA technique, discrete time queueing systems and simulation, and stochastic Petri networks. The whole is backed by case studies of distributed queueing networks arising in industrial applications. This third edition includes a new chapter on self-similar traffic, many new problems, and solutions for many exercises.