%0 Journal Article
%T Determining Bounds on Assumption Errors in Operational Analysis
%A Neal M. Bengtson
%J Journal of Optimization
%D 2014
%R 10.1155/2014/460570
%X The technique of operational analysis (OA) is used in the study of systems performance, mainly for estimating mean values of various measures of interest, such as, number of jobs at a device and response times. The basic principles of operational analysis allow errors in assumptions to be quantified over a time period. The assumptions which are used to derive the operational analysis relationships are studied. Using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions bounds on error measures of these OA relationships are found. Examples of these bounds are used for representative performance measures to show limits on the difference between true performance values and those estimated by operational analysis relationships. A technique for finding tolerance limits on the bounds is demonstrated with a simulation example. 1. Introduction The analysis of the performance of a network of devices is important in many areas. Computer systems and industrial manufacturing systems are two examples. The types of networks considered in this paper are operationally connected, queue and server devices. That is, each device is connected in some way with every other device in the network and each device may have a queue assigned to it. Certain information about these types of networks may be obtained using a technique known as operational analysis (OA). Relationships used to estimate performance measures (PMs) of networks may be derived in operational analysis under a few restrictive assumptions. OA is a technique which was originally defined as an aid in computer system performance analysis [1¨C6]. It can be an aid in the understanding of system performance in general [7] and is a complementary approach to stochastic analysis used in many networks of servers performance analyzes and in computer programs [8¨C14]. Other used or suggested applications for the OA approach include telecommunications [15], E-commerce [16, 17], flexible manufacturing systems [18], and Petri nets [19¨C21]. The performance measures derived are such things as average number of units at a device, average response time, and throughput. The behavior of a single, arbitrary device in a network will be considered. Two basic principles define the OA approach [2].(1)All assumptions that are made in analyzing the performance of a real system should be subject to direct verification.(2)All variables that appear in any equation which characterize the performance of a real system should be verifiable by direct measurement. The validity of PM equations developed using these principles can be shown for a particular set of data
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jopti/2014/460570/