Imperial College London

ProfessorPeterHarrison

Faculty of EngineeringDepartment of Computing

Emeritus Professor in Mathematical Modelling
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 8363p.harrison Website

 
 
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Location

 

353Huxley BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Summary

Peter Harrison is Professor of Mathematical Modelling in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, where he has worked since 1976. He graduated at Christ's College Cambridge as a Wrangler in Mathematics in 1972 and went on to gain Distinction in Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in 1973, winning the Mayhew prize for Applied Mathematics. He has researched into stochastic performance modelling and algebraic program transformation for some thirty five years, visiting IBM Research Centers for two spells.  He has written two books, had over 200 research papers published and chaired the Joint Sigmetrics/Performance conference at Imperial in 2012. The results of his research have been exploited extensively in industry, forming an integral part of Metron's Athene capacity planning tool.  In the early 2000s he developed, and later mechanised, the RCAT methodology, from which new product-forms for Markovian networks have been found by several authors, and pioneered in the modelling of flash storage systems, incorporating dynamic workloads via Hidden Markov Models.  Response time distributions have always been a favourite and are currently being investigated in sharded storage systems, task-replication and energy-saving, using both generating function and matrix analytic methods.

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

Casale G, Harrison P, Hong OW, 2021, Facilitating load-dependent queueing analysis through factorization, Performance Evaluation, Vol:152, ISSN:0166-5316, Pages:1-32

Harrison P, Bor J, 2021, Response time distribution in a tandem pair of queues with batch processing, Journal of the ACM, Vol:68, ISSN:0004-5411

Harrison P, 2020, A semi-product-form for a pair of queues with finite batches: equilibrium state probabilities and response time densities, Performance Evaluation, Vol:143, ISSN:0166-5316

Harrison PG, Patel N, Perez J, et al., 2019, Managing response time tails by sharding, Acm Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems, Vol:4, ISSN:2376-3647, Pages:1-33

Qiu Z, Perez JF, Birke R, et al., 2017, Cutting latency tail: analyzing and validating replication without canceling, Ieee Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, ISSN:1558-2183

Harrison PG, Patel NM, Knottenbelt, 2016, Energy–performance trade-offs via the EP-queue, Acm Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems, Vol:1, ISSN:2376-3647

Qiu Z, Perez Bernal J, Harrison PG, 2015, Beyond the Mean in Fork-Join Queues: Efficient Approximation for Response-Time Tails, Performance Evaluation, Vol:91, ISSN:0166-5316, Pages:99-116

Tsimashenka I, Knottenbelt WJ, Harrison PG, 2014, Controlling variability in split-merge systems and its impact on performance, Annals of Operations Research, Vol:239, ISSN:1572-9338, Pages:569-588

Harrison PG, Hayden RA, Knottenbelt WJ, 2013, Product-forms in batch networks: Approximation and asymptotics, Performance Evaluation, Vol:70, ISSN:0166-5316, Pages:822-840

Harrison PG, Marin A, 2013, Product-Forms in Multi-Way Synchronizations, Computer Journal, Vol:57, ISSN:1460-2067, Pages:1693-1710

Marin A, Balsamo S, Harrison PG, 2012, Analysis of stochastic Petri nets with signals, Performance Evaluation, Vol:69, ISSN:0166-5316, Pages:551-572

Balsamo S, Harrison PG, Marin A, 2012, Methodological Construction of Product-Form Stochastic Petri nets for Performance Evaluation, Journal of Systems and Software, Vol:85

Harrison PG, Harrison SK, Patel NM, et al., 2012, Storage workload modelling by hidden Markov models: Application to Flash memory, Performance Evaluation, Vol:69, ISSN:0166-5316, Pages:17-40

Field AJ, Harrison PG, 2010, BUSY PERIODS IN FLUID QUEUES WITH MULTIPLE EMPTYING INPUT STATES, Journal of Applied Probability, Vol:47, ISSN:0021-9002, Pages:474-497

Dingle N, Harrison P, Knottenbelt W, 2004, Uniformization and Hypergraph Partitioning for the Distributed Computation of Response Time Densities in Very Large Markov Models, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, Vol:64, Pages:908-920

Harrison PG, 2003, Turning back time in Markovian process algebra, Theoretical Computer Science, Vol:290, ISSN:0304-3975, Pages:1947-1986

Harrison, P.G., Knottenbelt, W.J., 2002, Passage time distributions in large markov chains, Performance Evaluation Review, Vol:30, ISSN:0163-5999, Pages:77-85

Harrison, P.G., Strulo, B., 2000, SPADES-a Process Algebra for Discrete Event Simulation, Journal of Logic and Computation, Vol:10, ISSN:0955-792X, Pages:3-42

Harrison, P.G., 1999, On teaching M/G/1 theory with extension to priority queues, Iee Proceedings E - Computers and Digital Techniques

Field, A.J., Harrison, P.G., 1999, Sojourn Times in a Random Queue With and Without Preemption,, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol:112, Pages:646-653

Field T, Harrison P, 1996, Modelling and validation of shared memory coherency protocols, Performance Evaluation, Vol:27, Pages:541-563

Harrison, P.G., Pitel, E., 1995, Response time distributions in tandem G-networks, Journal of Applied Probability

HARRISON PG, PITEL E, 1993, SOJOURN TIMES IN SINGLE-SERVER QUEUES WITH NEGATIVE CUSTOMERS, Journal of Applied Probability, Vol:30, ISSN:0021-9002, Pages:943-963

DEGUZMAN IP, HARRISON PG, MEDINA E, 1993, PIPELINES FOR DIVIDE-AND-CONQUER FUNCTIONS, Computer Journal, Vol:36, ISSN:0010-4620, Pages:254-268

HARRISON PG, KHOSHNEVISAN H, 1992, ON THE SYNTHESIS OF FUNCTION INVERSES, Acta Informatica, Vol:29, ISSN:0001-5903, Pages:211-239

HARRISON PG, KHOSHNEVISAN H, 1992, A NEW APPROACH TO RECURSION REMOVAL, Theoretical Computer Science, Vol:93, ISSN:0304-3975, Pages:91-113

HARRISON PG, PATEL NM, 1990, THE REPRESENTATION OF MULTISTAGE INTERCONNECTION NETWORKS IN QUEUING MODELS OF PARALLEL SYSTEMS, Journal of the ACM, Vol:37, ISSN:0004-5411, Pages:863-898

PG H, 1990, LAPLACE TRANSFORM INVERSION AND PASSAGE-TIME DISTRIBUTIONS IN MARKOV-PROCESSES, Journal of Applied Probability, Vol:27, ISSN:0021-9002, Pages:74-87

Harrison P, 1988, Linearisation: An optimisation for nonlinear functional programs, Science of Computer Programming, Vol:10, Pages:281-318

HARRISON PG, REEVE MJ, 1987, THE PARALLEL GRAPH REDUCTION MACHINE, ALICE, Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, Vol:279, ISSN:0302-9743, Pages:181-202

HARRISON PG, 1981, TRANSIENT-BEHAVIOR OF QUEUING-NETWORKS, Journal of Applied Probability, Vol:18, ISSN:0021-9002, Pages:482-490

Conference

Harrison PG, Patel NM, 2018, Optimizing energy-performance trade-offs in solar-powered edge devices, ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering, ACM, Pages:253-260

Chis TS, Harrison PG, 2016, Performance-energy trade-offs in smartphones, 19th ACM International Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems, Pages:127-135

Harrison PG, Qiu Z, Perez JF, 2016, Variability-aware request replication for latency curtailment, 35th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2016), IEEE, Pages:1-9

Jones GL, Harrison PG, Harder U, et al., 2011, Fluid Queue Models of Battery Life, MASCOTS 2011, Pages:278-285, ISSN:1526-7539

Balsamo S, Harrison PG, Marin A, 2010, A unifying approach to product-forms in networks with finite capacity constraints, Sigmetrics 2010, ACM, Pages:25-35

Harrison P, Zhang Y, 2005, Delay Analysis of Priority Queues with Modulated Traffic, MASCOTS 2005, IEEE International Symposium on Modelling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, IEEE Computer Society Press, Pages:280-287

Harrison, P.G., Zatschler, H., 2004, Sojourn time distributions in modulated G-queues with batch processing, 1st international conference on the quantitative evaluation of systems (QEST 2004), Enschede, Netherlands, IEEE Computer Soc, Los Alamitos, Pages:90-99

Harrison, P.G., Knottenbelt, W.J., 2000, Passage Time Distributions in Large Markov Chains, IFIP Working Group 7.3 & University of Central Florida Symposium on Advanced Performance Modeling (SAPM), Orlando, Florida

Harrison, P.G., Knottenbelt, W.J., 1999, Distributed disk-based solution techniques for large Markov models, Proc 3rd Int. Conference on the Numerical Solution of Markov Chains, NSMC 99, Zaragoza

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