Systems Performance


Book Description

The Complete Guide to Optimizing Systems Performance Written by the winner of the 2013 LISA Award for Outstanding Achievement in System Administration Large-scale enterprise, cloud, and virtualized computing systems have introduced serious performance challenges. Now, internationally renowned performance expert Brendan Gregg has brought together proven methodologies, tools, and metrics for analyzing and tuning even the most complex environments. Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud focuses on Linux(R) and Unix(R) performance, while illuminating performance issues that are relevant to all operating systems. You'll gain deep insight into how systems work and perform, and learn methodologies for analyzing and improving system and application performance. Gregg presents examples from bare-metal systems and virtualized cloud tenants running Linux-based Ubuntu(R), Fedora(R), CentOS, and the illumos-based Joyent(R) SmartOS(TM) and OmniTI OmniOS(R). He systematically covers modern systems performance, including the "traditional" analysis of CPUs, memory, disks, and networks, and new areas including cloud computing and dynamic tracing. This book also helps you identify and fix the "unknown unknowns" of complex performance: bottlenecks that emerge from elements and interactions you were not aware of. The text concludes with a detailed case study, showing how a real cloud customer issue was analyzed from start to finish. Coverage includes - Modern performance analysis and tuning: terminology, concepts, models, methods, and techniques - Dynamic tracing techniques and tools, including examples of DTrace, SystemTap, and perf - Kernel internals: uncovering what the OS is doing - Using system observability tools, interfaces, and frameworks - Understanding and monitoring application performance - Optimizing CPUs: processors, cores, hardware threads, caches, interconnects, and kernel scheduling - Memory optimization: virtual memory, paging, swapping, memory architectures, busses, address spaces, and allocators - File system I/O, including caching - Storage devices/controllers, disk I/O workloads, RAID, and kernel I/O - Network-related performance issues: protocols, sockets, interfaces, and physical connections - Performance implications of OS and hardware-based virtualization, and new issues encountered with cloud computing - Benchmarking: getting accurate results and avoiding common mistakes This guide is indispensable for anyone who operates enterprise or cloud environments: system, network, database, and web admins; developers; and other professionals. For students and others new to optimization, it also provides exercises reflecting Gregg's extensive instructional experience.




Talent Wins


Book Description

Radical Advice for Reinventing Talent--and HR Most executives today recognize the competitive advantage of human capital, and yet the talent practices their organizations use are stuck in the twentieth century. Typical talent-planning and HR processes are designed for predictable environments, traditional ways of getting work done, and organizations where "lines and boxes" still define how people are managed. As work and organizations have become more fluid--and business strategy is no longer about planning years ahead but about sensing and seizing new opportunities and adapting to a constantly changing environment--companies must deploy talent in new ways to remain competitive. Turning conventional views on their heads, talent and leadership experts Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey provide leaders with a new and different playbook for acquiring, managing, and deploying talent--for today's agile, digital, analytical, technologically driven strategic environment--and for creating the HR function that business needs. Filled with examples of forward-thinking companies that have adopted radical new approaches to talent (such as ADP, Amgen, BlackRock, Blackstone, Haier, ING, Marsh, Tata Communications, Telenor, and Volvo), as well as the juggernauts and the startups of Silicon Valley, this book shows leaders how to bring the rigor that they apply to financial capital to their human capital--elevating HR to the same level as finance in their organizations. Providing deep, expert insight and advice for what needs to change and how to change it, this is the definitive book for reimagining and creating a talent-driven organization that wins.




The Talent Fix


Book Description

Corporate talent acquisition has been failing for decades, but it doesn't have to. There are simple fixes, organizational designs, and technology that can turn around the succ ess of an organization's ability to recruit almost overnight.Piece by piece and step by step, with real-world examples and stories about how innovative organizations and top talent acquisition leaders are successfully recruiting today, The Talent Fix presents a proven, practical, and scalable recruiting model for talent acquisition leaders and practitioners and shows how organizations can build and sustain a great talent acquisition function.




Talent Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Cultivating and Retaining Organizational Excellence


Book Description

Welcome to "Talent Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Cultivating and Retaining Organizational Excellence". In today's fast-paced and highly competitive world, organizations are constantly searching for strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Effectively managing and developing talents within the organization is a vital aspect of this endeavor. Managing talent extends beyond the process of hiring the right individuals. It requires nurturing their skills, fostering their growth, and securing their dedication to the company in the long run. This book delves into the importance of talent management and provides practical guidance, strategies, and best practices to help organizations cultivate a culture of excellence. With a wealth of experience working with a wide range of organizations and individuals, I have utilized my knowledge and expertise in talent management as an academic, consultant, and government and business executive to create the content of this book. This information collection represents a wealth of experience, including valuable insights, notable achievements, and obstacles conquered.




The Public Productivity and Performance Handbook


Book Description

A productive society is dependent upon high-performing government. This third edition of The Public Performance and Productivity Handbook includes chapters from leading scholars, consultants, and practitioners to explore all of the core elements of improvement. Completely revised and focused on best practice, the handbook comprehensively explores managing for high performance, measurement and analysis, costs and finances, human resources, and cutting-edge organizational tools. Its coverage of new and systematic management approaches and well-defined measurement systems provides guidance for organizations of all sizes to improve productivity and performance. The contributors discuss such topics as accountability, organizational effectiveness after budget cuts, the complementary roles of human capital and “big data,” and how to teach performance management in the classroom and in public organizations. The handbook is accompanied by an online companion volume providing examples of performance measurement and improvement manuals across a wide variety of public organizations. The Public Performance and Productivity Handbook, Third Edition, is required reading for all public administration practitioners, as well as for students and scholars interested in the state of the public performance and productivity field.




Employee Performance Management for Improved Workplace Motivation


Book Description

In the dynamic landscape of organizational management, the challenge of effectively evaluating and enhancing employee performance stands as a pivotal obstacle to maximizing workplace productivity and motivation. Traditional performance appraisal methods often fall short in providing meaningful insights into employees' contributions and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This gap between outdated evaluation techniques and the evolving demands of the modern workforce presents a pressing dilemma for Human Resource Management professionals and organizational leaders worldwide. Employee Performance Management for Improved Workplace Motivation emerges as a definitive solution to this critical problem, offering a comprehensive guide to revolutionizing performance management systems. This book meticulously explores the intricacies of performance evaluation, from planning and monitoring to reviewing and rewarding. By integrating theoretical frameworks, practical case studies, and strategic insights, the book equips HR professionals, managers, and scholars with the tools and knowledge needed to implement effective performance management practices that drive employee motivation and organizational success.




Global Perspectives on Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education Institutions


Book Description

Quality accreditation in higher education institutions (HEIs) is currently a buzzword. The need to maintain high-quality education standards is a critical requirement for HEIs to remain competitive in the market and for government and regulatory bodies to ensure the quality standards of programs offered. From being an implicit requirement that is internally addressed, quality assurance activities become an explicit requirement that is regularly audited and appraised by national and international accreditation agencies. HEIs are voluntarily integrating quality management systems (QMS), institutional and program-specific, in response to the political and competitive environment in which it exists. Through its higher education department or by creating non-profitable accreditation bodies, many governments have implemented a quality framework for licensing HEIs and invigilates its adherence based on which accreditation statuses are granted for HEIs. Global Perspectives on Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education Institutions provides a comprehensive framework for HEIs to address quality assurance and quality accreditation requirements and serves as a practical tool to develop and deploy well-defined quality management systems in higher education. The book focuses on the critical aspects of quality assurance; the need to develop a concise and agile vision, mission, values, and graduate attributes; and to develop a system that effectively aligns the various activities of the HEI to the attainment of the strategic priorities listed in the institutional plans. The chapters each cover the various facets of the quality assurance framework and accreditation agencies' requirements with practical examples of each. This book is useful for HEI administrators, quality assurance specialists in HEIs, heads of academic departments, internal auditors, external auditors, and other practitioners of quality, along with stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in quality assurance and accreditation in higher education.




Cassandra: The Definitive Guide


Book Description

Imagine what you could do if scalability wasn't a problem. With this hands-on guide, you’ll learn how the Cassandra database management system handles hundreds of terabytes of data while remaining highly available across multiple data centers. This third edition—updated for Cassandra 4.0—provides the technical details and practical examples you need to put this database to work in a production environment. Authors Jeff Carpenter and Eben Hewitt demonstrate the advantages of Cassandra’s nonrelational design, with special attention to data modeling. If you’re a developer, DBA, or application architect looking to solve a database scaling issue or future-proof your application, this guide helps you harness Cassandra’s speed and flexibility. Understand Cassandra’s distributed and decentralized structure Use the Cassandra Query Language (CQL) and cqlsh—the CQL shell Create a working data model and compare it with an equivalent relational model Develop sample applications using client drivers for languages including Java, Python, and Node.js Explore cluster topology and learn how nodes exchange data




Advances in Manufacturing Technology XXXV


Book Description

Within the context of Industrial 4.0 and beyond, developing and managing the technologies and operations key to sustaining the success of manufacturing businesses is crucial, and the promotion of manufacturing-engineering education, training, and research is of vital importance. This book presents the proceedings of ICMR 2022, the 19th International Conference in Manufacturing Research, Incorporating the 36th National Conference in Manufacturing Research, held in Derby, UK, from 6 - 8 September 2022. For over two decades, ICMR has been the main manufacturing research conference held in the UK. Bringing together researchers, academics, and industrialists to share their knowledge and experience, the conference provides a friendly and inclusive platform for a broad community of researchers who share the common goal of making digital and advanced manufacturing as efficient and effective as possible. The theme of ICMR2022 is smart manufacturing. Of the 78 papers submitted, 58 were accepted for presentation after review and are included here. This represents an acceptance rate of 72%. The book is divided into 8 sections: smart manufacturing; digital manufacturing; additive manufacturing; robotics and industrial automation; composite manufacturing and machining processes; product design, development and quality management; information and knowledge management; and decision support and production optimization. Exploring all core areas of digital and advanced manufacturing engineering, the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.




Standards for Management Systems


Book Description

This book guides readers through the broad field of generic and industry-specific management system standards, as well as through the arsenal of tools that are needed to effectively implement them. It covers a wide spectrum, from the classic standard ISO 9001 for quality management to standards for environmental safety, information security, energy efficiency, business continuity, laboratory management, etc. A dedicated chapter addresses international management standards for compliance, anti-bribery and social responsibility management. In turn, a major portion of the book focuses on relevant tools that students and practitioners need to be familiar with: 8D reports, acceptance sampling, failure tree analysis, FMEA, control charts, correlation analysis, designing experiments, estimating parameters and confidence intervals, event tree analysis, HAZOP, Ishikawa diagrams, Monte Carlo simulation, regression analysis, reliability theory, data sampling and surveys, testing hypotheses, and much more. An overview of the necessary mathematical concepts is also provided to help readers understand the technicalities of the tools discussed. A down-to-earth yet thorough approach is employed throughout the book to help practitioners and management students alike easily grasp the various topics.