Windows 2000 Performance Guide: Help for Administrators and Application Developers

by Mark Friedman, Odysseas Pentakalos

It is characteristic of most computer systems that they do not degrade gradually. The painful reality is that performance is acceptable day after day, until quite suddenly it all falls apart. When this happens, the administrator needs to be prepared to help the organization get through the crisis.

Computer applications are growing ever more intelligent and easy to use. One of the by-products of making applications easier to use is that they usually also require more resources to run. And wherever productivity is a central factor in the decisions you make, performance considerations loom large and continue to play an important role in system management.

Are you wondering, for example, if more expensive equipment would give better performance? The answer is often yes, but not always. This book will show you why it is important to understand the performance characteristics of the hardware and of the workload, and how they match up against each other. Windows 2000 Performance Guide takes you through problem solving techniques like measurement methodology, workload characterization, benchmarking, decomposition techniques, and analytic queuing models.

This book

Processor performance
Application profiling and hardware considerations
Multiprocessing
Memory and paging
File cache
Disk performance
Networking
IIS


The horror stories of failed development projects that did not meet cost and performance specifications reflect the fact that expectations about what computer technology can do far exceed the reality. Even as hardware performance continues to improve, managing performance will not get perceptibly easier. This book will give you the tools and information you need to meet the challenges of performance management now and in the future.

Many of the popular computer books out there promise easy answers, but this is the only book for those tricky situations that have no direct precedent. Windows 2000 Performance Guide will give you the information and the conceptual framework to become your own Windows 2000 performance expert.

718 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

After teaching high school math for one year, Mark Friedman served for 19 years in the Maryland Department of Human Resources, including six years as the department's Chief Financial Officer. In 1991 he joined the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington, D.C. where his work focused on helping state and local governments finance innovative child and family services. In 1996, he founded the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute (FPSI) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since 1996, he has provided training at the federal, state, county, city, school district and community levels.

Friedman's work has involved nearly every kind of government and non-profit organization from social services, health and education to transportation, environment and many more. His widely acclaimed methods have been used in over 40 states and seven countries outside the United States.