Other Resources for Capacity Planning


Here is a list of other resources useful for students in Capacity Planning.


Professional Societies

There are two professional societies dedicated to capacity planning and performance evaluation. They are:
  1. Computer Measurement Group (CMG) - An industry group with a strong mainframe focus.

  2. ACM SIGMETRICS - An ACM special interest group for performance. More "academic" than CMG.

Books

There are many books on the subjects of capacity planning and performance evaluation. To get you started, here is a a short list (mostly) from my personal library. The order is by date and grouped by author.
  1. D. Lilja, Measuring Computer Performamce, A Practioner's Guide, Cambridge University Press, 2000. (A short and very readable text on performance measurement with a CPU architects viewpoint).

  2. D. Menasce and V. Almeida, Scaling for E-Business, Technologies, Models, Performance, and Capacity Planning, Prentice-Hall, 2000. (A business-side view of capacity planning. Introduces the customer behavior model.)

  3. D. Menasce and V. Almeida, Capacity Planning for Web Performance, Metrics, Models, and Methods, Prentice-Hall, 1998. (Builds on authors' 1994 book.)

  4. D. Menasce, V. Almeida, and L. Dowdy, Capacity Planning and Performance Modeling, From Mainframes to Client-Server Systems, Prentice-Hall, 1994. (A textbook on capacity planning - the definitive "modern" book on this subject).

  5. P. Killelea, Web Performance Tuning, O'Reilly, 1998. (A hands-on practical guide, but one that will be dated very quickly).

  6. N. Gunther, The Practical Performance Analyst, McGraw-Hill, 1998. (Analytical modeling with an "attitude". Readable. Good material on instability and scaling).

  7. G. Bolch, S. Greiner, H. Meer, and K. Trivedi, Queueing Networks and Markov Chains, John Wiley and Sons, 1998. ("Hard core" analytical modeling with discussion of tools.)

  8. A. Law and W. Kelton, Simulation Modeling and Analysis, McGraw-Hill, 1991 (The classic book on simulation. A strong FORTRAN and IE flavor.)

  9. R. Jain, The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, 1991. (A "must have" reference book. Winner of many awards.)

  10. P. King, Computer and Communication Systems Performance Modeling, Prentice-Hall, 1990. (Analytical modeling with formal development. Classic queueing theory.)

  11. M. Molloy, Fundamentals of Performance Modeling, MacMillan, 1989. (A simpler version of Kleinrock Volume 1. Very readable. Contains dated case studies.)

  12. M. MacDougall, Simulating Computer Systems, MIT Press, 1987. (Old but good simulation viewpont that is not "IE flavored". Very readable. Introduces SMPL).

  13. E. Lazowski, J. Zahorjan, G. Graham, and K. Sevcik, Quantitative System Performance, Computer System Analysis Using Queueing Network Models, Prentice-Hall, 1984. (A textbook on analytical modeling with chapters on modeling specific computer subsystems.)

  14. H. Kobayashi, Modeling and Analysis: An Introduction to System Performance Evaluation, Addison-Wesley, 1981. (A lot of material - but a bit dated.)

  15. D. Ferrari, Computer Systems Performance Evaluation, Prentice-Hall, 1978. (The definitive book on capacity planning, but very dated with its mainframe centric focus.)

  16. L. Kleinrock, Queueing Systems Volume 2: Computer Applications, John Wiley and Sons, 1976. (Applications of Volume 1. Not as necessary as Volume 1.)

  17. L. Kleinrock, Queueing Systems Volume 1: Theory, John Wiley and Sons, 1975. (The classic text on queueing theory - in many ways it all started here.)

Last updated by Ken Christensen on AUGUST 23, 2001