Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Committee Chair

Bojan Cukic.

Abstract

The discovery of fractal phenomenon in computer-related areas such as network traffic flow leads to the hypothesis that many computer resources display fractal characteristics. The goal of this study is to apply fractal analysis to computer memory usage patterns. We devise methods for calculating the Holder exponent of a time series and calculating the fractal dimension of a plot of a time series. These methods are then applied to memory-related data collected from a Unix server. We find that our methods for calculating the Holder exponent of a time series yield results that are independently confirmed through calculation of the fractal dimension of the time series, and that computer memory use does indeed display multifractal behavior. In addition, it is hypothesized that this multifractal behavior may be useful in making certain predictions about the future behavior of an operating system.

Share

COinS