Organization

This book consists of nine chapters:

Chapter 1, sets the stage for the rest of the book through a discussion of fundamental principles.

Chapter 2, describes performance management through understanding and limiting system workloads, as well as describing some common benchmarks.

Chapter 3, briefly discusses modern processor architecture, caching, multiprocessor systems, and how the operating system schedules tasks .

Chapter 4, explains how computer memory systems are organized, and how that management interacts with other parts of the system.

Chapter 5, describes disks in the simplest state: how hard drives function and what limitations they have that can be worked around.

Chapter 6, is in some senses a continuation of Chapter 5; it is a discussion of the technique of connecting multiple disks into a single logical unit.

Chapter 7, addresses issues surrounding network performance, from the physical layer through communications protocols like TCP/IP and file sharing systems like Samba and NFS.

Chapter 8, is a brief introduction to how to write fast code, as well as a summary of modern compiler usage.

Chapter 9, is a summary of some of the key points discussed throughout the book, presented as a reference for solving problems and configuring systems quickly.