Analyzing Computer System Performance with Perl::PDQ

Neil Gunther, M.Sc., Ph.D. is a leading industry computer performance consultant who founded Performance Dynamics Company (www.perfdynamics.com) in 1994. Prior to that, Dr. Gunther held research and management positions at San Jose State University, JPL/NASA (Voyager and Galileo spacecraft), Xerox PARC research center and Pyramid/Siemens Technology. His performance and capacity planning classes have been presented at such organizations as Boeing, Fedex, Motorola, Stanford University, and Sun Microsystems. Dr. Gunther is the author of over a hundred papers on computer performance topics, including "HIT-AND-RUN TACTICS ENABLE GUERRILLA CAPACITY PLANNING," published recently in IEEE IT Professional magazine. He has also written the book THE PRACTICAL PERFORMANCE ANALYST (iUniverse.com 2000). In 1996 he was awarded Best Technical Paper at CMG, and in 1997 was nominated for the A.A. Michelson Award. Dr. Gunther is a member of the AMS, ACM, CMG, IEEE, SAGE-AU, SIGMETRICS and USENIX.

Part I Preliminary Concepts.- Why Queues Rule Performance Analysis.- Measurement Tools and Techniques.- Time - The Zeroth Performance Metric.- Part II Basic Queueing Theory for PDQ.- Getting the Jump on Queueing.- Queueing Systems for Computer Systems.- Linux Load Average.- Performance Bounds and Log Jams.- Part III Practical Application of PDQ.- Pretty Damn Quick|A Slow Introduction.- Multicomputer Analysis with PDQ.- How to Scale an Elephant with PDQ.- Client/Server Analysis with PDQ.- Web Application Analysis with PDQ.- Virtual Machine Analysis with PDQ.- Part IV Appendices.- Thanks for No Memories.- Compendium of Queueing Equations.- Units and Abbreviations.- Perl PDQ Manual.- Solutions to Selected Exercises.

From the reviews

"The literature of computer performance analysis is generally composed of two groups: heavy theoretical treatises and performance cookbooks. [...] Surprisingly, this book is exceptionally well balanced between theory and practice [...] . I strongly recommend this book, both for the novice practitioner and for the experienced performance analyst. Both can extract a vast array of benefits, ranging from understanding the theoretical concepts of performance modeling, to building for themselves a powerful modeling tool [...] ." Jair Merlo, Computing Reviews, May 2005

From the reviews of the second edition:

"Besides its case studies on applying queueing theory to the analysis of computer performance, this book on queueing circuits also includes a quick user guide to Perl Pretty Damn Quick (PDQ), a reference manual, and numerous examples. ... The book is written to be a field manual for enlightened practitioners of performance analysis, or possibly a school textbook. ... It is a laudable achievement to make performance analysis theoretical foundations available to anyone who is interested and can master high-school algebra." (A. Squassabia, ACM Computing Reviews, December, 2011)

From the reviews "The literature of computer performance analysis is generally composed of two groups: heavy theoretical treatises and performance cookbooks. […] Surprisingly, this book is exceptionally well balanced between theory and practice […] . I strongly recommend this book, both for the novice practitioner and for the experienced performance analyst. Both can extract a vast array of benefits, ranging from understanding the theoretical concepts of performance modeling, to building for themselves a powerful modeling tool […] ." Jair Merlo, Computing Reviews, May 2005From the reviews of the second edition:“Besides its case studies on applying queueing theory to the analysis of computer performance, this book on queueing circuits also includes a quick user guide to Perl Pretty Damn Quick (PDQ), a reference manual, and numerous examples. … The book is written to be a field manual for enlightened practitioners of performance analysis, or possibly a school textbook. … It is a laudable achievement to make performance analysis theoretical foundations available to anyone who is interested and can master high-school algebra.” (A. Squassabia, ACM Computing Reviews, December, 2011)