Workstation and System Configurations Goto Contents

Brian Bramer, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester 24 September 1995

1. Introduction
2. Performance requirements due to system and application software
   1. Outline of a typical small to medium sized configuration
   2. Operating system and system software requirements
      1. Support for a Multi-Programming Environment
      2. Support for Virtual Memory
      3. Main Memory Requirements
      4. Disk Requirements
   3. Application Dependent Performance Factors
3. Important Factors in System Performance
   1. Factors Influencing Overall System Performance
   2. Factors Influencing Processor Performance
      1. Internal Processor Architecture
      2. Clock Speed
      3. Memory Speed
      4. Address Bus Size
      5. Data Bus Size
4. Processor Performance Enhancement Techniques
   1. Prefetch and Pipelining
   2. Cache Memory
   3. Example Processor Evolution: Intel and Motorola Microprocessors
   4. CISC and RISC Processors
   5. Special Purpose Processors, Multi-processors, etc.
      1. Special Purpose Processors
      2. Multi-Processors and Parallel Processors
         1. Data Parallel Processing
         2. Control Parallel Processing
5. Integrated Circuits and Performance Enhancement
6. System Configurations
   1. Personal Computers, Workstations, Minis, Distributed, etc.
   2. Performance Factors in a Distributed Environment
   3. Bus and Token Ring Networks
   4. FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) Network
   5. Internetworks: Bridges, Routers and Gateways
   6. Example Network Configuration
7. Case Studies of Applications and Sample System Configurations
   1. General requirements, disk backup, disk viruses, etc.
   2. Engineering Design Office using CAD Tools
   3. Small Centralised Database Environment
   4. Program Development Laboratory in an Educational Environment
8. Conclusions
9. References