A revealing alternate proof is provided for the Iglehart (1965), (1973)–Borovkov (1967) heavy-traffic limit theorem for GI/G/s queues. This kind of heavy traffic is obtained by considering a sequence of GI/G/s systems with the numbers of servers and the arrival rates going to ∞ while the service-time distributions are held fixed. The theorem establishes convergence to a Gaussian process, which in general is not Markov, for an appropriate normalization of the sequence of stochastic processes representing the number of customers in service at arbitrary times. The key idea in the new proof is to consider service-time distributions that are randomly stopped sums of exponential phases, and then work with the discrete-time vector-valued Markov chain representing the number of customers in each phase of service at arrival epochs. It is then easy to show that this sequence of Markov chains converges to a multivariate O–U (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck) diffusion process by applying simple criteria in Stroock and Varadhan (1979). The Iglehart–Borovkov limit for these special service-time distributions is the sum of the components of this multivariate O–U process. Heavy-traffic convergence is also established for the steady-state distributions of GI/M/s queues under the same conditions by exploiting stochastic-order properties.

It is shown that the heavy-traffic Gaussian limit for GI/G/∞ queues is Markovian if and only if the service-time distribution H(t) is of the form 1-H(t) = pe–αt for α > 0 and 0 < p ≦ 1.

It is proved that in a GI/G/s queue with the traffic intensity ρ < (S – m + l)/S, m ≧ 1, at least m servers are simultaneously idle infinitely often with probability one.

The stable GI/G/s queue (ρ < 1) is sometimes studied using the “fact” that epochs just prior to an arrival when all servers are idle constitute an embedded persistent renewal process. This is true for the GI/G/1 queue, but a simple GI/G/2 example is given here with all interarrival time and service time moments finite and ρ < 1 in which, not only does the system fail to be empty ever with some positive probability, but it is never empty. Sufficient conditions are then given to rule out such examples. Implications of embedded persistent renewal processes in the GI/G/1 and GI/G/s queues are discussed. For example, functional limit theorems for time-average or cumulative processes associated with a large class of GI/G/s queues in light traffic are implied.