Syllabus

Syllabus & (tentative) Schedule

THE INFORMATION ON THIS WIKI PAGE MAY BE UPDATED THROUGHOUT SEMESTER. PLEASE CHECK IT REGULARLY

Schedule at-a-glance

Class times and location: Monday & Wednesday, 4:00pm-5:20pm in TBD.

Legend: date (quizzes) and due date (homeworks)

Hmwk	Quizz

	Mo.	We.	Mo.	We.	Mo.	We.	Mo.	We.	Mo.
September	14	16	21	23	28 (Q1)	30 (H1)
October	5	7	12 (Q2)	14 (H2)	19	21	26	28 (Q3)
November	2 (H3)	4	9	11	16 (Q4)	18 (H4)	23	25	30 (Q5)
December		2 (H5)	7	9	14	16 (Q6)
						16 (H6)

Detailed Schedule & Syllabus

NOTE: This schedule in TENTATIVE, and may change depending on the speed at which we cover different topics. Changes to the schedule will be reflected as quickly as possible on this page.

September

Unit	Date	Scope	Material & Reading Assignments (To Be Read Ahead of Class)	Notes & slides (If any)	Preview Problems	Quizzes & Homeworks
U0	9/14	Course overview, logistics, (motivating) examples and terminology	Chapters 1 & 2	Notes 0 Intro & Nomenclature	Preview Problems 1
U1	9/16	A brief review of probability topics, both basic and slightly more advanced, which are needed in the course	Chapters 3 & 5	Probability Refresher and Practice Problems	Preview Problems 2
U1	9/21	An introduction of general principles such as Little's Law and various other "laws" and bounds for closed system, which hold with little or no assumptions	Chapters 6 & 7	Little & Operational Laws	Preview Problems 3
U1	9/23	An introduction of general principles such as Little's Law and various other "laws" and bounds for closed system, which hold with little or no assumptions	Chapters 6 & 7	Little & Operational Laws
U2	9/28	A first foray into Markov chain focused on finite Discrete Time Markov Chains (DTMCs) and their applications to simple problems.	Chapter 8 (Sections 8.1 to 8.7)	Discrete Time Markov Chains and "Web caching as a DTMC"	Preview Problems 5]	Quiz 1
U2	9/30	Infinite DTMCs and some simple applications	Chapter 8 (Sections 8.8 to 8.10)	Discrete Time Markov Chains	Preview Problems 6	HWK #1

October

Unit	Date	Scope	Material & Reading Assignments (To Be Read Ahead of Class)	Notes & slides (If any)	Preview Problems	Quizzes & Homeworks
U2	10/5	Ergodicity, balance equations, and time reversibility for DTMCs	Chapter 9	Ergodicity and more	Preview Problems 7
U2	10/7	Review of z-transforms and applications to DTMCs	Chapter 25 (the parts about z-transforms) & Chapter 10 (mostly Section 10.3, though the others are of independent interest)	z-transforms and DTMC Examples and z-transform solution for Geom/Geom/1 queue	Preview Problems 8
Open	10/12	U2 Recap session	All U2 material			Quiz 2
U3	10/14	Exponential distribution & Poisson process	Chapter 11	Exponential & Poisson Distributions (except the material on PASTA)	[Preview Problems 9	HWK #2
U3	10/19	Introduction to continuous time Markov chains (CTMC)	Chapter 12	Continuous Time Markov Chains	Preview Problems 10
U3	10/21	M/M/1 queue & PASTA theorem	Chapter 13	Continuous Time Markov Chains plus Exponential & Poisson Distributions (for PASTA), and and some related problems]	Preview Problems 11
U3	10/26	M/M/k/k (Erlang-B formula) and M/M/k queueing systems	Chapter 14	Slides 9	Preview Problems 12
Open	10/28	U3 Recap session	All U3 material			Quiz 3

November

Unit	Date	Scope	Material & Reading Assignments (To Be Read Ahead of Class)	Notes & slides (If any)	Preview Problems	Quizzes & Homeworks
U4	11/2	Applications to system provisioning	Chapter 15 + Sections 8.11 & 8.12 of Zukerman's book (Hayward approximation and Equivalent Random Theory)	Slides 10	Preview Problems 13	HWK #3
U4	11/4	Revisiting time reversibility and applications to network of queues	Chapter 16	Slides 11	Preview Problems 14
10/26	Jackson networks (of queues) and product form distribution	Chapter 17	Slides 11 and Lecture 15 problem	Preview problems 15
10/28	Classed Jackson networks	Chapter 18	Slides 11 and Lecture 16 problem	Preview Problems 16
11/02	Closed Jackson networks & mean value analysis (MVA)	Chapter 19	Slides 11	Preview Problems 17	HWK#4
11/04	A quick introduction to Matrix-Analytic techniques and phase-type distributions	Chapter 21	Slides 12	Preview Problems 18
11/9	Processor sharing queues	Chapter 22	Slides 13	Preview Problems 19	Quiz 3
11/11	The M/G/1 queue and Renewal-Reward theorem	Chapter 23	Slides 14	Preview Problems 20
11/16	A brief foray into server assignment policies	Chapter 24	Slides 15	Preview Problems 21	HWK #5
11/18	Transform analysis of M/G/1 queue (and review of transforms)	Chapter 25 and Chapter 26 (Section 1)	Slides 16 and Slides 16bis	Preview Problems 22
11/23	M/G/1 queue and application to power optimization	Chapter 26 (Section 2) and Chapter 27	Slides 17	Preview Problems 23
11/25	NO CLASS - THANKSGIVING BREAK
11/30	M/G/1 queue with non-preemptive scheduling priorities	Review Section 3 of Chapter 27, Chapter 29 and Chapter 31	Slides 18	Preview Problems 24	Quiz 4

December

Date	Scope	Material & Reading Assignments (To Be Read Ahead of Class)	Notes & slides (If any)	Preview Problems	Quizzes & Homeworks
12/02	Preemptive, non-size-based scheduling policies	Chapter 30 & Section 32.2	Slides 19	Preview 26 Problems	HWK #6
12/08	Preemptive size-based scheduling policies	Chapter 32 (Sections 32.3 and onward) & Chapter 33	Slides 20]	Preview 27 problems
12/20	EXAM 2	(6:00-8:00pm in TBD)