Deterministic Models

There are several reasons for studying deterministic models of computer systems and their work loads 1 With deterministic models, we can carry out a worst-case or a best-case analysis so that we can obtain upperbounds or lower-bounds on the performance of a system under all possible circumstances 2 Effects of variation of system parameters can be studied more directly and explicitly and 3 There exists the possibility of designing optimal algorithms for the effective utilization of system resources. Such algorithms often behave well when the systems deviate from the deterministic model. We present here three closely related topics to illustrate some of the aspects of deterministic modelling.