A methodology and tool for performance analysis of distributed server systems

We present a methodology and tool for performance analysis of distributed server systems, which allows high-level specification of the system, and generates and solves the underlying queueing network model. Our approach is different from the existing ones in that the specification captures the natural manner in which application servers are deployed on machines and machines are deployed on networks. The model does not impose any strict tiers on the server system. Multiple use case scenarios can be specified, and the tool computes measures such as end-to-end response times for each scenario while taking into account queueing delays at the hardware device, software threads and at the network. The development of the tool is ongoing, and will include detailed network protocol models as well as more flexible distributed system behavior, in the future.