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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
A 2-by-2 buffered switch is the basic element of certain parallel data-processing networks. For a switch fed by two independent Bernoulli input streams, we find the joint distribution of the number of messages waiting in the two buffers at equilibrium, in the form of a bivariate generating function. The derivation uses complex-variable techniques developed by Kingman and by Flatto and McKean for the “shortest queue problem.” A number of asymptotic results are given, the principal one being the variance of the total number of waiting messages in the heavy-traffic limit.