Small business system performance analysis
James O. Dyal, William DeWald · ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review · 1979
This paper presents results from the performance simulation study of a small business-oriented computer system. The system, SPERRY UNIVAC BC/7-700, is commercially available in the configuration modeled and in other higher performance models. All BC/7 systems modeled are supported with highly interactive applications software systems. The model is parameterized to select one or more workstations and one or more cartridge disks. File allocations are by cylinder. Seek times are computed by remembering the position of each movable arm. References are randomized within each file, but the sequence in which files are accessed is controlled by the application logic, in conjunction with the number of line items/order. Most event times are not constant, but the result of drawing randomly against empirical distributions with specified mean and standard deviation. For this study, the system simulated is composed of a single work-station running the highly interactive on-line version of a sophisticated order entry application package. Principal performance measures are system throughput and response time, including operator action times. It is found that, in the single workstation environment, performance is very cost effective in this highly competitive part of the information system market.