• The final exam is over. Have a great Break!

Course Synopsis

A C.S. alum's perspective on what is taught in CS 547: 2005.

This course provides an introduction to the state-of-the-art analytic modeling techniques that are used in computer system design. Topics include fundamental performance laws, bottleneck analysis, basic probability and probability distributions, server and network workload characterization, mean value analysis, elementary queueing theory, and the use of these techniques in customized system models. The customized models provide insight into software and hardware bottlenecks and quantify the impact of system and application design decisions. They have thus been used, for example, to design optimized operating system semaphores & scheduling policies, optimized query processing systems for e-commerce, optimized high throughput applications, high performance parallel architectures, bottleneck-free interconnection networks, simple fair bus arbitration protocols, and high performance Internet protocols such as near-optimal video streaming protocols and a new near-optimal TCP protocol. Analytically-guided designs have been adopted commercially because they are relatively easy to implement and because they have near-optimal performance. The course focuses on the techniques that have universal application, and also covers example use of the techniques in customized models to illustrate how the techniques are applied and the insights that can be obtained.