On the slow server problem

In this paper the problem of optimal control over a Markov queueing system with heterogeneous servers and a joint queue is considered, which is also known in the literature as "the slow server problem." The classical model is generalized here to the case with delay and call serving penalties. It is proved here that the optimal control policy for servers' activating is of monotonic and threshold nature. © 2009 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.