nichols@goofy.apple.com (Kathie Nichols) (10/20/90)
Call for Papers IEEE Software Magazine Theme Issue on Software for Performance Analysis Performance analysis is rapidly becoming a hot topic in software engineering. Performance analysis is meant to answer the questions beyond "Is it correct?". The focus is on whether the system under study is "fast enough" or "reliable enough" and "what is the effect of making changes in the system?". These questions are important in several key emerging areas: * Graphics workstations have made it possible to create sophisticated software systems with visually-oriented interfaces, but response time is a critical performance attribute. * Real-time embedded systems must meet requirements of timing and reliability. * High-speed networks are being designed to meet the demands of distributed computing and of connecting ultra-fast CPUs. Whether such networks can be made fast enough at a reasonable cost must be addressed before significant resources are devoted to them. * Parallel computing is highly performance-oriented: significant speedups or significantly larger problems must be acheived to make the additional software, hardware, and programming overhead cost effective. These are four widely disparate areas, but all require performance analysis. This need has recently been recognized by major corporations like Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Apple Computer, who have all started major projects involving performance analysis. In the past, performance has either been ignored or has been carried out by running discrete and repetitious experiments resulting in lengthy dumps of metrics which were analyzed by hand. Today's complex systems require more than simple dumps of metrics. Systems are studied through instrumenting, modeling, and simulating software and hardware. The overwhelming amount of data produced by such systems and the numerous options involved require that performance information be given to the user in a digested form, possibly with some analysis done or important data highlighted. These methodologies and techniques for the study of software performance need to be shared. This issue of IEEE Software will provide a forum for recent developments in software methods and techniques that serve to expedite performance analysis. This is a call for papers on performance analysis tools and reports of particular software studies presented as a systematic approach to measurement and analysis of software performance. Papers describing both case studies of general importance and tools of proven effectiveness are solicited. In particular, innovative methodologies and novel presentations of performance data that have a potential for wide application are sought. Submit 6 copies of manuscript by February 1, 1991 to: Kathleen M. Nichols or Paul Oman Apple Computer, Inc. Computer Science Dept. 20525 Mariani Avenue College of Engineering M/S 76-3K University of Idaho Cupertino, CA 95014 Moscow, ID 83843 (408) 974-1136 (208) 885-6589 nichols@apple.com oman@ted.cs.uidaho.edu For further information, contact Kathleen or Paul at the above addresses.