IIT Bombay has announced a free online course called “Introduction to Computer and Network Performance Analysis using Queuing Systems” that can be completed in 4 weeks. The focus in this short course will be on being able to reason about asymptotic values of performance metrics at high loads and low loads, which is very useful in validating results of performance tests. Also, the NPTEL website says that a case study of interpreting the load test results of a simple Web Server using the framework of queuing systems will be covered throughout the course.
The course will be conducted by Prof Varsha Apte is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. She works in the areas of performance analysis of computing systems and networks. She completed her MSc in from Pune University in 1989, and PhD from Duke University in 1994, both in Computer Science. Furthermore, during the academic years 2009-2011, she was Visiting Faculty at the Computer Science and Automation Department, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
What the IIT Bombay Free Online Course Will Cover?
The course is being offered as analyzing the performance of any computer or networked system is an important step in the design and deployment of such systems. Some of the topics that will be covered are as follows:
- Introduction, why do delays happen, contention for resources.
- Performance metrics and parameters.
- Introduction to queuing system: Standard parameters and metrics, or Kendall Notation.
- Metrics of open queuing systems.
- Introduction to memorylessness.
- Operational laws, utilization law, throughput, or stability of a queuing system.
- Case study: Experimental performance measurement of a web server (open load)atch.
Important Details of IIT Bombay Free Online Course
The course will be conducted from 22 August to 16 September 2022, and an examination will be conducted on 29 October 2022. Fourth year undergraduates or post-graduates in computer science and engineering, or IT industry professionals engaged in computer applications performance testing and evaluation can apply for the course.
