01: Course Introduction

"Things are always at their best in their beginning."—Blaise Pascal."I keep six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who."—Rudyard Kipling.Lecture outline: introduction to this course; motivation for studying performance analysis; learning objectives; discussion about course outline.

1. What is Network Performance Evaluation (NPE)?

What is performance evaluation?

Importance of Computer Networks.

Importance of NPE.

2. About this course

Primary reference for this lecture:

“The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: Techniques for Experimental Design, Measurement, Simulation, and Modeling” by Raj Jain; Chapter 1: “Introduction”

Secondary references for this lecture:

1. “Measuring Computer Performance: A Practitioner's Guide” by David Lilja; Chapter 1: “Introduction”.

2. “Computer Performance Methodology”, by Heidelberger [link].