System Performance Evaluation: Survey and Appraisal The state of the art of system performance evaluation is reviewed and evaluation goals and problems are examined. Throughput, turnaround, and availability are defined as fundamental measures of performance; overhead and CPU speed are placed in perspective. The appropriateness of instruction mixes, kernels, simulators, and other tools is discussed, as well as pitfalls which may be encountered when using them. Analysis, simulation, and synthesis are presented as three levels of approach to evaluation, requiring successively greater amounts of information. The central role of measurement in performance evaluation and in the development of evaluation methods is explored. CACM January, 1967 Calingaert, P. CA670102 JB March 1, 1978 9:10 AM 1653 4 1653 1653 4 1653 1653 4 1653 2387 4 1653 2852 4 1653 2989 4 1653 963 5 1653 1069 5 1653 1417 5 1653 1653 5 1653 1653 5 1653 1653 5 1653 2151 5 1653 2318 5 1653 1653 6 1653 1653 6 1653 1747 6 1653 1860 6 1653