Workload models for multiwindow distributed environments

Performance evaluation of computing environments requires a description of the workload under which the evaluation is done. The model used for workload description should capture all the significant features of the workload. Many of the workload models developed has not been able to capture the fact that in modern systems users can open multiple windows and execute commands in parallel. Parallel execution of commands has a large impact on the performance of the system. In a modern distributed system, parallel execution of commands at a workstation results in more computation at the workstation as well as an increase in the rate of packet arrival on the underlying network. Since the representation of parallelism is important, we present a new workload model which captures it. Probabilistic attributed context free grammar is used to describe, model and generate the workload.