Quantitative Analysis of Computer Systems

Quantitative computer performance analysis consists of discovering and ascertaining the efficiency of a computer system; it may be, for example, concerned with the estimation of the performance behaviour of a system under construction, or monitoring that of an existing one. This book presents a body of proven methods on quantitative performance analysis developed over the years, and is based on lecture material given to students of computer science at London and Reading Universities. A large proportion of computer science students feel uneasy about quantitative computer systems analysis because they either find the whole subject obscure and difficult to understand, or they find it difficult to relate the sometimes excessively theoretical treatment to concrete performance situations. Written with this in mind, this book emphasises the practical applications and usable results rather than the general techniques of analysis.
It is divided broadly into three parts; the first part gives the background and motivation of quantitative performance analysis, the second part deals with the prediction and modelling of system efficiency through analytic descriptions, and the final part deals with the empirical approaches relating to performance tuning and monitoring. Although suitable as a self-contained book on computer performance analysis it can also be used as a supplementary text for other computer science courses in which some degree of quantitative analysis is required, or as a useful reference source for professional systems analysts and software engineers. At the end of every chapter key results and the concepts treated are summarised, and numerous illustrative examples are provided throughout the text.