Computer system performance is a topic that has held my interest for many years. Starting with my interest in OR (Operational Research), I have been heavily involved with queueing theory, computer modeling and simulations starting with my undergraduate engineering studies in the 1980s. I have been passionate about evaluating, measuring and postulating on system performance since then and my interest has continued to this day.
Recently I have spent a large portion of my time architecting, writing and running a set of storage system workload tools known as IOmark. These tools were used to create standard workloads and strict rules for running and reporting the performance of storage systems running these workloads.
To date, I have resisted to temptation to write what was on my mind, and instead have conversations with people. That has changed and today is my first blog post. What has not changed is my continued interest in computer system performance, measurements and sound engineering principles.
This all serves as backdrop to my next blog post, which provides specific information on a set of tests I recently performed under contract. Several questions have arisen on-line, and therefore the most direct method of addressing these questions is via a blog post.
