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 System Theory: Time - The Zeroth Performance Metric; Getting the Jump on Queueing; Queueing Systems for Computer Systems; Linux Load Average - Take a Load Off!; Performance Bounds and Log Jams.- Part II System Practice: Pretty Damn Quick: A Slow Introduction; Analyzing Multicomputer Architectures; How to Measure an Elephant with PDQ; Analyzing Client/Server Applications; Analyzing Web Applications with PDQ.- Part III Appendices: Glossary of Terms; A Short History of Buffers; Thanks for the (Lack of) Memories; Performance Metrics and Tools; List of Programs; Compendium of Queueing Equations; Solutions to Selected Exercises.- References.- Index.