Yeah, the math for your situation is Queuing Theory, btw. A somewhat unrelated subject. I'd say lock-free programming doesn't necessarily help that problem. Pe

Yeah, the math for your situation is Queuing Theory, btw. A somewhat unrelated subject. I'd say lock-free programming doesn't necessarily help that problem. Performance improvements are one of the keys, as the faster your code executes, the "shorter the queues get" because you're processing everyone faster in the system. Queuing Theory is one of the weirder maths in Comp. Sci. I have mixed opinions on whether or not its really worth studying, as it covers very obvious truths. (The faster your code executes, the shorter lines get. Etc. etc.). I've seen the arguments that Queuing Theory is a lot of "obvious math" that you'll keep solving over-and-over again in parallel systems / code optimization however, so might as well formalize the concepts. ----------- Queuing Theory is that all systems can be modeled as queues (aka: lines), where people stand in line waiting to be served. And "servers", who serve these people waiting in line. When someone is served, they move on to another queue / line up and wait for the next server to serve them. You then do a bunch of math to see how long these lines get (ie: representing how much RAM you need to save all of these jobs) in a variety of random-distributions (poisson arrival times, etc. etc.).