SIGMETRICS Annual Report
July 1998 - June 1999
Submitted by: Murray Woodside Chair
Highlights
Sigmetrics had an active year, with one highlight being the successful
first meeting of a new conference, the "Workshop on Software and
Performance (WOSP)".
WOSP addresses an area between software
engineering and performance analysis and modelling, which is becoming
more challenging with the growth of distributed and concurrent
systems. Logical patterns of interaction in these systems can be
difficult to understand and can dramatically degrade their
performance. Complexity is high; there are many possible culprits. It
is becoming harder and harder to "build in" the desired performance in
a software design (and it has never been easy). One of the key factors
in the success of WOSP98 was the participation of a large contingent
from the software industry. A later development which may be key for
long-term success is an arrangment with SIGSOFT for joint sponsorship
of the next conference in September 2000.
This year the flagship conference, SIGMETRICS'99, was a showcase for
experimental studies in just about every area of evaluation of
computer systems. Modeling studies and mathematical analysis were much
less prominent.
Services
The services of the SIG are its newsletter Performance Evaluation
Review, its sponsorship of conferences, including co-sponsorship where
performance in an area of application is the topic, and its bulletin board.
The SIGMETRICS performance bulletin board continues to provide a key
service in holding together the scattered community of specialists in
this area.
Awards
Regarding awards, The present SIG practices do not include career or
service awards. The question of awards was discussed but not resolved
during the year. The weight of history is a factor here; there is a
large and distinguished group of contributors to be recognized.
Issues
Sigmetrics concentrates on the development of new techniques for
performance evaluation, to deal with or to exploit new technology and
new demands. The key issues facing this community are
- the spread of the "panic button" syndrome in industry, in which
effort is taken away from performance evaluation to save time, leading
to performance failures and urgent last-minute projects to save
projects that are failing. Performance work is becoming associated
with failure, and rational design methods for performance are losing
ground in many companies.
- performance evaluation is becoming more remote from the expertise
of the average system developer, perhaps due to layers of abstraction
that separate them from the real execution,
- the increasing power of simulation due to processing cost
reductions, has shifted the balance of advantage for some performance
questions from analytic modeling to simulations,
- making models (analytic and simulation both) more accessible to
practitioners through various ideas such as standardization
A continuing issue facing the SIG as an organization is its role
relative to the communities that apply performance evaluation, such as
in architecture, operating systems, multimedia, etc. The strategy
adopted by the Sig is to establish links through cooperation and
co-sponsorship of meetings.
Outstanding Volunteer Efforts
The following individuals are noted for their outstanding volunteer
efforts:
- Danny Menasce, General Chair of SIGMETRICS 99,
- Carey Williamson, Program Chair of SIGMETRICS 99,
- Bill Cheng, Finance Chair of SIGMETRICS 99,
- Mary Vernon, who filled in for the Chair for a six month period at the end of 98,
- Pat Worley, Bulletin Board Director
- Scott Leutenegger, Editor-in-Chief of PER (Performance Evaluation Review).
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