An analysis of impact of workload fluctuations on performance of computer systems

This paper presents an analysis of system performance degradation induced by workload fluctuations. The basic idea of the analysis is based on catastrophe theory. Conventional performance models typically express workload only by using its average properties. However we may not be able to predict system performance simply by using average workload properties, since computer systems are nonlinear systems and workload of computer systems usually fluctuates. The interaction between workload fluctuations and the nonlinearity may greatly affect system behavior. Our analysis shows that fluctuations in workload may change the dynamic structure of the system state space and cause the system performance to vary drastically