Mathematical adventures in performance analysis. From storage systems, through airplane boarding, to express line queues (Q405515)

In the first chapter ``A Classical Model for Storage System Activity'' a simplified model of a disk drive is proposed. The purpose is to estimate the disk utilization. The proved properties of the average total seek time show that considered model is safe to use. In Chapter 2 ``A Fractal Model for Storage System Activity'' the author gives a strict analysis for I/O model which was introduced in [\textit{M. Wang} et al., Perform. Eval. Rev. 49, No. 1, 147--163 (2002; Zbl 1043.68013)]. Some useful basic results are derived. In Chapter 3 ``Airplane Boarding, Disk Scheduling, and Lorentzian Geometry'' the problem of minimizing the airplane boarding time is considered. The author shows the close connection between I/O disk scheduling and airplane boarding problems. It is shown how Lorentzian geometry can be used for approximation of an optimal boarding time. Chapter 4 ``Mirrored Configurations'' considers the situation when any file has a copy on each of two disks. The problem of configuration the file placement to optimize the performance of data reading is solved. The problem is stated in the terms of graph theory. The fifth chapter ``On Queues and Numbers'' considers a problem of effective managing a mini-market with two checkout counters. Some well solvable special cases of the problem are derived. Especial attention is paid to the role of symmetry. The end of each chapter is provided by a number of notes, where related problems are proposed for research.