Syllabus

Syllabus & 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)

Quiz	Hmwk

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

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	NA
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]	HWK #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	Quiz 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			HWK #2
U3	10/14	Exponential distribution & Poisson process	Chapter 11	Exponential & Poisson Distributions (except the material on PASTA)	[Preview Problems 9	Quiz 2
U3	10/19	Introduction to continuous time Markov chains (CTMC), M/M/1 queue & PASTA theorem	Chapters 12 & 13	Continuous Time Markov Chains plus Exponential & Poisson Distributions (for PASTA), and and some related problems]	Preview Problems 10
U3	10/21	M/M/k/k (Erlang-B formula) and M/M/k queueing systems	Chapter 14	Slides 9	Preview Problems 12
U3	10/26	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
Open	10/28	U3 Recap session	All U3 material			HWK #3

November

Unit	Date	Scope	Material & Reading Assignments (To Be Read Ahead of Class)	Notes & slides (If any)	Preview Problems	Quizzes & Homeworks
Open	11/2	U3 Recap session	All U3 material			HWK #3
U4	11/4	Revisiting time reversibility and applications to network of queues	Chapter 16	Slides 11	Preview Problems 14	Quiz 3
U4	11/9	Jackson networks (of queues) and product form distribution	Chapter 17	Slides 11 and Chapter 17 problem	Preview problems 15
U4	11/11	Classed & closed Jackson networks + mean value analysis (MVA)	Chapters 18 & 19	Slides 11 and Chapter 18 problem	Preview Problems 16
Open	11/16	U4 Recap session	All U4 material			HWK #4
U5	11/18	A quick introduction to Matrix-Analytic techniques and phase-type distributions	Chapter 21	Slides 12	Preview Problems 17	Quiz 4
U5	11/23	Processor sharing queues	Chapter 22	Slides 13	Preview Problems 18
U5	11/25	The M/G/1 queue and Renewal-Reward theorem	Chapter 23	Slides 14 and Chapter 23 problems	Preview Problems 19
U5	11/30	A brief foray into server assignment policies	Chapter 24	Slides 15	Preview Problems 20

December

Date	Scope	Material & Reading Assignments (To Be Read Ahead of Class)	Notes & slides (If any)	Preview Problems	Quizzes & Homeworks
Open	12/2	U5 Recap session	All U5 material covered so far			HWK #5
U5	12/7	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
U5	12/9	M/G/1 queue and application to power optimization	Chapter 26 (Section 2) and Chapter 27	Slides 17	Preview Problems 23
U5	12/14	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
U5	12/16	Preemptive, non-size-based and size-based scheduling policies	Chapters 30, 32 & 33	Slides 19	Preview 26 Problems	HWK #6