Announcements

• Every class will involve a filling in a handout. This takes the place of notes. The handout for each class will be posted the night before the class in the "Class Schedule" section below.
  • If you have a tablet, then you should download the handout before class and fill it out during class.
  • If you don't have a tablet, I will have some photocopied handouts available. Just bring a pen!
• There will be a Probability Assessment handed out on the first day of class, due 48 hours later. It's just 2 problems.
• There will be an OPTIONAL Probability Review Session run by the TAs, from 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. on Aug 27th in GHC 6501.
• HW 1 will be posted at this site a little before Friday, Aug 29th, and will be due on Friday, Sept 5th.
• A few people have asked how often Performance Modeling is taught. The answer is every-other-year in the Fall semester.

Homeworks

• Homework 1 -- Queueing Terminology -- Due Sept 5 at 2 p.m.
  • For problem 2.2: you should think of T as the response time for an arbitrary job; S as the size of that job; and Slow as the slowdown of that job. You are looking for E[Slow] = E[T/S] for this arbitrary job. Specifically, T and S refer to the same job. Clearly a job's response time, T, is not independent of its size, S.
• Homework 2 -- Convergence, z-Transforms, Little's Law -- Due Sept 12 at 2 p.m.
• Homework 3 -- More Operational Laws -- Due Sept 19 at 2 p.m.

Here's the link to sign up for a research meeting with Mor (this is worth 5% of your grade).

Here's the link to sign up for grading one homework (this is worth 5% of your grade).

Class Schedule (tentative)

Papers are totally optional reading. You're only responsible for the book reading.

• Mon, Aug 25, Chpt 1: Motivating Examples on Queueing Theory. (Mor) handout for class
  • AutoScale dynamic power management paper (TOCS 2012) -- This is the paper that talks about how setup times are much less problematic if you have a lot of servers. AutoScale was adopted by Facebook.
  • Jalani Williams PhD thesis (CMU, 2024) -- Analysis of setup times in multiserver systems.
  • Optimal power allocation in server farms (SIGMETRICS 2009) -- This is a problem that came from IBM and deals with the question of many turtles versus one fast rabbit.
  • Surprising results on task assignment/ load balancing (SIGMETRICS 2009) -- This is a paper showing that the "best" load balancing policy is not obvious and depends on the particular job size distribution in counter-intuitive ways.
• Wed, Aug 27, Chpt 2: Queueing Theory Notation/Vocabulary. (Mor) handout for class
• Fri, Aug 29, Chpt 4: Simulating Random Variables. (Zhouzi) handout for class
• Mon, Sept 1, LABOR DAY, NO CLASS
• Wed, Sept 3, Chpt 5: Convergence of Random Variables and Time Average versus Ensemble Average (Mor) handout for class
• Fri, Sept 5, Chpt 25 -- z-transforms only plus exercises on z-transforms (Keerthana) handout for class
• Mon, Sept 8, Chpt 6: Operational Laws, Little's Law (Mor) handout for class
  • Optional (in case you're interested): Extra Details on Little's Law proof
  • Closed versus open system models paper (NSDI 2006) -- This paper discusses differences on the effect of scheduling policies in closed versus open systems.
• Wed, Sept 10, Chpt 7: Modification Analysis Intro (Mor) handout for class
• Fri, Sept 12, Chpt 7: Modification Analysis -- Real-world Caching application (Zhouzi) handout for class
• Mon, Sept 15, Chpt 8: Discrete-Time Markov Chains (Mor) handout for class
• Wed, Sept 17, Chpt 9: Ergodicity Theory (Mor)
• Fri, Sept 19: NO CLASS: ENJOY A BREAK
• Mon, Sept 22, Chpt 9: Ergodicity Theory (Mor)
• Wed, Sept 24, Chpt 9: Ergodicity Theory -- Infinite-state DTMCs (Mor)
• Fri, Sept 26, Chpt 11: Chpt 25: Laplace Transforms (Keerthana)
• Mon, Sept 29, Chpt 11: Exponential Distribution leading to Poisson Process (Mor)
• Wed, Oct 1, Chpt 11 cont: Poisson Process (Mor)
• Fri, Oct 3, Chpt 12: Conversion to M/M/1 (Zhouzi)
• Mon, Oct 6, Chpt 13: M/M/1 (Mor)
• Wed, Oct 8, Chpt 14: M/M/k (Mor)
• THURS -- Oct 9 -- MIDTERM 1
• Fri, Oct 10 -- Midterm 1 review OPTIONAL (Keerthana)
• WEEK OF OCT 13: CMU BREAK
• Mon, Oct 20: Chpt 15: Square Root Staffing (Zhouzi)
• Wed, Oct 22, Chpt 16: Burke's Thm (Mor)
• Fri, Oct 24, NO CLASS: ENJOY A BREAK
• Mon, Oct 27, Chpt 17: Jackson Networks (Mor)
• Wed, Oct 29, Chpt 18: Classed Jackson Networks (Mor)
• Fri, Oct 31, Chpt 20: Pareto Distribution (Keerthana)
• Mon, Nov 3, Chpt 21: Phase-type Distributions (Zhouzi)
• Wed, Nov 5, NO CLASS: ENJOY A BREAK
• Fri, Nov 7, Chpt 23: Renewal Reward (Mor)
• Mon, Nov 10, Chpt 23 cont., chpt 24: Task Assignment (Mor)
• Wed, Nov 12, Chpt 26 (Mor)
• Fri, Nov 14, Chpt 27 Busy Periods (TAs)
• Mon, Nov 17 Chpt 28, 29 : Scheduling (Mor)
• Wed, Nov 19 -- Chpt 31: Scheduling (Mor)
• Fri, Nov 21 NO CLASS: ENJOY A BREAK
• Mon Nov 24 Chpt 30/32: Scheduling (Mor)
• Wed, Nov 26: THANKSGIVING NO CLASS
• Fri, Nov 28: THANKSGIVING NO CLASS
• Mon, Dec 1: Chpt 32: Scheduling (Mor)
• Wed, Dec 3: Chpt 33: Scheduling (Mor)
• Thurs, Dec 4 -- MIDTERM 2
• Fri, Dec 5 -- Entirely Optional -- Going over exam (TAs)