Performance modeling and design of computer systems
by Mor Harchol-Balter · first published 2013
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Queueing theory taught through practical computer-systems examples. It is approachable for working engineers and applies performance analysis to real systems, making it well suited to practitioners.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Computer systems design is full of conundrums. Tackling the questions that systems designers care about, this book brings queueing theory decisively back to computer science. The book is written with computer scientists and engineers in mind and is full of examples from computer systems, as well as manufacturing and operations research. Fun and readable, the book is highly approachable, even for undergraduates, while still being thoroughly rigorous and also covering a much wider span of topics than many queueing books. Readers benefit from a lively mix of motivation and intuition, with illust
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> 3 visit/second This reminds me of an excellent book on queueing theory for software engineers: Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems: Queueing Theory In Action by Mor Harchol-Balter
on “$320k in hosting a month for ~8m monthly visits” ↗…of the book is what appears to be a pretty good refresher path. IMHO working through that book will make you practice with enough basic calc to make moving on to stochastic calculus fairly easy. [1] Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems: Queueing Theory in Action - Mor Harchol-Balter https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/PerformanceModeling/book.htm...
on “An Introduction to Stochastic Calculus (2022)” ↗…Data-Intensive Applications book, which I like a whole lot. Alex Petrov's "Database Internals" is also a very approachable introduction. I wish every practitioner in the field would read Harchol-Balter's Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems.
on “Ask HN: Recommended books and papers on distributed systems?” ↗…this book and Deming will take a few years to digest. You'll want to practise it in real life, then come back to read it again, then practise some more. Eventually the lessons will start to stick. = Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems by Mor Halchor-Balter. Despite the name, this is a book about queueing theory. You know, that branch of statistics that shows up literally everywhere, except nobody seems to understand that it does.…
on “Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?” ↗Once you've read this, pick up Harchol–Balter's book Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems: Queueing Theory in Action. It's a really good introduction to the depth of this topic, and you'll come out with superpowers you didn't have before.
on “Queues Don't Fix Overload (2014)” ↗…material from this book and Matching to research work. Business Dynamics by Sterman. Still the best system dynamics book I've ever read. I'm anxiously waiting for the 2nd edition, expected circa 2021. Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems: Queueing Theory in Action by Harchol-Balter. Approachable and enlightening. I stumbled on a few of the proofs and got lost once or twice in thickets of notation, but that's due to my own mathematical…
on “Observations on Observability” ↗At first I was going to say "there are too many good ones and I can't pick out a favourite." But then I looked at the list and there is one clear favourite among many very good ones: Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems. Queueing theory is probably one of the most useful subjects of all time, for just about any human. This book teaches it in a way that made it extremely easy for me to grok.
on “Ask HN: Best books read in 2022” ↗For anyone interested in this subject, the book Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems: Queueing Theory in Action is really, really good. TFA introduced me to queueing theory and that book made me understand the subject better than anything else I have read.
on “Queues don't fix overload (2014)” ↗Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems: Queueing Theory in Action https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107027500
on “Seven Insights into Queueing Theory [pdf]” ↗I learned about the prevalence of Pareto distributions in computer systems from Harchol-Balter's Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems[0] (which, I will admit, I properly understood perhaps 25% of). She reported the Pareto distribution of process times from first data collected in 1997[1]. [0] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/PerformanceModeling/book.htm...…
on “The longer it has taken, the longer it will take (2015)” ↗