36: Operational Analysis

"The operational definition of a peanut butter sandwich might be simply 'the result of putting peanut butter on a slice of bread with a butter knife and laying a second equally sized slice of bread on top'" - Wikipedia's operational definition. Lecture outline: Description of some simple and very general operational laws.

Preamble: Stochastic vs. Operational analysis

1. Operational Analysis: Concepts and Notation

Open Network Models: Visit Ratio; Service time and Response Time; System and Device throughputs; Device service demand.

Closed Queueing Network Models: Think time

2. Operational Laws:

Utilization Law; Little’s Law; Forced Flow Law; General Response Law; Interactive Response Time Law

Primary reference for this lecture:

1. “The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: Techniques for Experimental Design,

2. "Measurement, Simulation, and Modeling” by Raj Jain; Chapter 33: “Operational Laws”.

Secondary references for this lecture:

1. “Quantitative System Performance: Computer System Analysis Using Queueing Network Models” by Lazowska, Zahorjan, Graham, and Sevcik [freely available online on authors website]; Chapter 3: “Fundamental Laws”.

2. “Performance Evaluation of Computer and Communication Systems” by Le Boudec, Chapter 8: “Queuing Theory For Those Who Cannot Wait”, Section 8.2: “Operational Laws for Queueing Systems”

3. “Performance Evaluation of Computer and Communication Systems” by Le Boudec, Chapter 8: “Queuing Theory For Those Who Cannot Wait”, Section 8.9.3: “Operational Analysis”

4. "The Operational Analysis of Queueing Network Models", Denning and Buzen [link].