Stephen Gold

Stephen Gold's Technical Publications

Before I focused on writing, I was a computer performance engineer, a graduate student, and a research associate. I wrote many technical documents. Here is a partial list of my publications from that era (1986-2001).

Defects in SFS 2.0 Which Affect the Working Set (technical report)
Significant defects were found in the SFS 2.0 fileserver performance benchmark, causing it to be withdrawn. Decreasing the number of load-generating processes tended to reduce the benchmark's working-set. (Web-published by Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) in July 2001. Read the report on-line.)

"The Mercury Interconnect Architecture: a cost-effective infrastructure for high-performance servers" (co-authored technical paper)
We described an infrastructure for connecting microprocessors, memory, and I/O components in high-performance multiprocessing servers. (Appeared in the Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture in 1997. Purchase the paper on-line from the ACM.)

"Performance Limiting Factors in Http (Web) Server Operations" (co-authored technical paper)
Measurements of a UNIX webserver revealed the bottlenecks that delineated its performance envelope. (Appeared in Compcon '96: 'Technologies for the Information Superhighway' Digest of Papers in February 1996. Purchase the paper on-line from the IEEE.)


Note: Before 1996, my legal name was Stephen R. Goldschmidt.

"Multiprocessor Simulation and Tracing using Tango" (technical paper)
Co-authored with Helen Davis and John Hennessy. Apparently a reprint of my 1991 paper listed below. (Appeared in Multiprocessor Performance Measurement and Evaluation, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995.)

Simulation of Multiprocessors: Accuracy and Performance (PhD thesis)
Stored traces, simplified memory systems, and parallel processing were three techniques used to accelerate multiprocessor simulation. I evaluated the reliability of these techniques and the achievable speedups. (Published by Stanford University in June 1993. Purchase the thesis on-line from ProQuest.)

"The Accuracy of Trace-Driven Simulations of Multiprocessors" (technical paper)
We showed that trace-driven simulations of multiprocessors are inaccurate unless system dependencies are eliminated from the traces. Co-authored with John L. Hennessy. (Appeared in ACM Sigmetrics Performance Evaluation Review volume 21, issue 1, June 1993. Purchase the paper on-line from the ACM.)

The Accuracy of Trace-Driven Simulations of Multiprocessors (technical report)
Co-authored with John L. Hennessy. An earlier version of the paper listed above. (Published by the Stanford Computer System Lab as CSL-TR-92-546 in September 1992. Read the report on-line.)

"Multiprocessor Simulation and Tracing using Tango" (co-authored technical paper)
We described a simulator for execution and tracing of multiprocessor applications. (Appeared in the Proceedings of the 1991 International Conference on Parallel Processing in August 1991.)

Tango: A Multiprocessor Simulation and Tracing System (technical report)
Co-authored with Helen Davis. An earlier version of the paper listed above. (Published by the Stanford Computer System Lab as CSL-TR-90-439 in July 1990. Read the report on-line.)

Tango Introduction and Tutorial (technical manual)
Instructions for using the Tango simulator. Co-authored with Helen Davis. (Published by the Stanford Computer Systems Lab as CSL-TR-90-410 in January 1990. Read the report on-line.)

User Manual: The Optimum Path-to-Go Guidance Simulator (technical manual)
(Published by Barron Associates, Inc. in August 1988.)

Introductory User's Guide to the Architect's Workbench Tools (technical manual)
Instructions for using the Architect's Workbench. Co-authored with Josep Torrellas, Brian Bray, Kathy Cuderman, Alan Kobrin, and Andrew Zimmerman. (Published by the Stanford Computer Systems Lab as CSL-TR-88-355 in May 1988. Read the report on-line.)

User's Manual: ASPN -- Algorithm for Synthesis of Polynomial Networks (co-authored technical manual)
(Published by Barron Associates, Inc. in November 1986.)

Estimating Signals with Polynomial Filters (co-authored technical report)
(Published by Barron Associates, Inc. on 6 March 1986.)

Super-Controllers: Adaptive Control with APNs (co-authored technical report)
(Published by Barron Associates, Inc. on 28 February 1986.)