tem, and the number of customers who have departed. A closed-form solution is then obtained for this model, from which various performance measures of interest can be derived. The author also presents transient analysis of certain Markovian queues based on this same approach. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers. As a research monograph, this book is presented at a sophisticated mathematical level, and it has a bibliography giving pointers to the research literature. previously developed to model local area network performance. The final chapter describes a network simulation tool, available from the authors, which permits the user to develop simulation models of local area networks. The Benchmark Handbook: Database and Transaction Processing Systems, Jim Gray, ed., Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1991. 334 pp. $49.95. T h i s book is unique in the performance literature, and provides a valuable service to those interested in benchmarking database and transaction processing systems, or who are interested in benchmarking in general. The Introduction was written by the editor, and explains the structure of the book, and has a discussion of benchmarking in general, explaining the need for benchmarks, design criteria for benchmarks, and an overview of the benchmarks presented in the book. Each of the remaining chapters discusses on specific benchmark or benchmark suite. Each is written by a different author, often one (or more) or the original authors of the benchmark. Although the specific contents of the chapters vary a bit from chapter to chapter, basically each chapter gives an overview of the benchmark, discusses how to run the benchmark, and, perhaps most valuable of all, shows how to interpret the results of the benchmark. The following benchmarks are discussed: T P C , The Wisconsin Benchmark, AS3AP, The Set Query Benchmark, the Enginnering Database Bechmark, and the Neal Nelson Business Benchmark. A final chapter discusses how to create and use your own benchmarks. Modeling and Analysis of Local Area Networks, Paul J. Fortier and George Desrochers, CRC Press, 1990. 313 pp. $49.95. According to the author, this book is intended for network researchers, users, designers and evaluators, to enable them to make informed decisions about network design and configuration. Except for the lack of exercises, this book could also be used as a textbook in this area. The first section of the book gives a very quick overview of network technology, to provide a basis for the analysis later in the book. The middle section of the book (actually, over half the length of the book) is an introductory treatment of performance evaluation topics. After a review of probability theory, there is a discussion of general principles of simulation analysis, queueing models, and computational methods for networks of queues. The final section of the book presents some network-specific performance methods. There is a detailed chapter on the use of hardware testbeds for determining network performance. The next chapter offers some examples using the performance tools Performance Evaluation Review Vol. 19 #3, February 1992

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