1. Project 4 U-Pick – A Project of Your Own Design Proposal Due: April 14 th (earlier ok) Project Due: April 25 th

2. Overview Choose your own project Emphasis can vary –Write new code –Modify your code or others –Use existing benchmarks or tools –Use simulators, write simulator All require a report

3. Proposal Due in about 1 week Outline work in project (simulation, measurement, model, validation…) Brief description of tasks, tools, setups … –Indicate what you need to learn Timeline Grading guide (from your point of view) Summary of what you will learn Designed to make your project the right size and focus

4. Possible Projects (1 of 3) Simulate a complex system –As in Project 1 but for a computer system. Measure the effect of key system parameters (factors) on computer or network performance –As in Project 2. Evaluate the effectiveness of several benchmarks in predicting pertinent application performance –As in Project 3 but for more benchmarks or more systems. Analyze perf (throughput, response time) of some computer network as a function of system load

5. Possible Projects (2 of 3) Understand, use and extend a well-known simulator (such as NS-2) –Will show an example later Analyze the performance of some interesting machine(s) using standard benchmark programs –SPEC, HINT Determine how well physical distance between hosts on the Internet determines access time –Ex: Do miles correlate with throughput (or RTT)? Comparison of C versus Java for an application- centric workload

6. Possible Projects (3 of 3) Identify the bottlenecks in some interactive computer system and perhaps tune it to obtain better performance Simulate and compare the behavior of various I/O caching policies. Develop a benchmark to test the throughput and response time of a Web server Develop a synthetic benchmark and see how it correlates with the overall performance of the SPEC benchmarks

7. Report Abstract Introduction - motivation, problem statement and hypotheses Background - providing any needed details. Include past work (with citations, as appropriate) Design - methodology, design of experiments, measurement methods, factors, levels, … Results and Analysis - explanation and interpretation of your results using appropriate statistical techniques Summary - conclusions you can draw from your analysis, plus what you learned Grading guide

8. Hints Only as large as other projects –Don’t think too big! Run new ideas by me by email or in person before proposal Get started early! –Proposal in 1 week –Remember, final exam soon after so plan accordingly!