  In this paper, we present an exact model for the analysis of the performance
of Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) in wired erasure networks with finite
buffers. In such networks, packets are delayed due to either random link
erasures or blocking by full buffers. We assert that because of RLNC, the
content of buffers have dependencies which cannot be captured directly using
the classical queueing theoretical models. We model the performance of the
network using Markov chains by a careful derivation of the buffer occupancy
states and their transition rules. We verify by simulations that the proposed
framework results in an accurate measure of the network throughput offered by
RLNC. Further, we introduce a class of acyclic networks for which the number of
state variables is significantly reduced.
