lel computer system performance data, to make this data easier to understand and to use to improve system or program performance. In addition to the papers presented at the workshop, the proceedings include summaries of four discussion groups, exploring broader issues in understanding the performance of parallel computation. Q u e u e i n g Analysis: A F o u n d a t i o n of Perf o r m a n c e E v a l u a t i o n . V o l u m e 1: V a c a t i o n a n d P r i o r i t y S y s t e m s , P a r t 1, H. Takagi, North-Holland, 1991. 487 pp. $108.75. This is the first volume in a series of books, designed to give an introduction to research-level topics in queueing theory applicable to performance evaluation. As such, it presumes as background a careful mathematical study of introductory queueing theory topics. This first volume concentrates on "Poissonarrival, single server queues with infinite capacity"; that is, on M/G/1 queues. The book consists of just three chapters. The first chapter is an extremely thorough study of the general M/G/1 queue. The next two chapters examine special M/G/1 queueing systems. The first is M/G/1 systems with vacations; that is, systems in which the server is unavailable at times even though there may be work offered to the system. Several different vacation models are presented. The second specialized type of M / G / 1 system is M/G/1 systems with priorities. Again, several different priority schemes are studied, as well as combined priority and vacation systems. There are 32 exercises scattered throughout the book, mainly requiring mathematical derivations to fill in the details of a proof, or to generalize a result presented in the text. The material presented in this book was previously available only in journal articles; the author has done a service to the research community by bringing it all together in an accessible form. Stochastic Analysis of C o m p u t e r a n d C o m m u n i c a t i o n S y s t e m s , H. Takagi (editor), Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (NorthHolland), 1990. 862 pp., $130.75. This is a collection of articles, written especially for this publication, designed to show the rich variety of stochastic models applicable to studying the performance of computer and communications systems. There are a total of twenty articles, divided into four sections. The first section, Stochastic Processes, includes articles using general presenting stochastic process models applied to computer and communications system modeling. The second section, Queues, presents queueing theoretic models which are applicable to performance modeling, although these articles concentrate on the queueing models themselves. The final two sections, Computer Systems and Communication Systems, present applications of analytic modeling to these kinds of systems. The final article is an extensive bibliography compiled by Dr. Takagi of works on performance evaluation. These are separate sections for books, special issues of journals, conference proceedings, and survey and tutorial articles. Performance Evaluation Review Vol. 19 #22, August 1991
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