Performance and traffic analysis of a network-based distributed system

Abstract

In this paper we study the performance of a distributed computing system that consists of a number of clients and a server, interconnected by a carrier-sense multiple-access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) LAN. Each client represents a single-user discless workstation, or an intelligent terminal, and generates application workload using either a conventional Unix file system or the Network File System (NFS). To characterize the application workload we perform a series of measurement experiments in a controlled environment. During each experiment the traffic on the network, and the activity on the various system resources are monitored. The measurements obtained from the experiments are used to parameterize a queueing network model of the system, which is then used to project the performance of the system under various load conditions, to identify system bottlenecks, and to compare design alternatives. The results obtained from the queueing network analysis are used to determine the maximum number of clients that can be supported by the system without violating system performance requirements.