Arnold Oral Allen (died 2004) was an American instructor, public speaker, and writer who worked at IBM and Hewlett-Packard, and specialized in the analysis and

mathematical modelling A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, ...

computer performance In computing, computer performance is the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system. Outside of specific contexts, computer performance is estimated in terms of accuracy, efficiency and speed of executing computer program instructio ...

Biography

Allen earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

in 1962 under Angus Taylor with a dissertation entitled ''Banach and Hilbert Spaces of Analytic Functions'', where he later lectured. At IBM, he taught at the Information Systems Management Institute in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

. Later, at Hewlett-Packard, he was a member of the Performance Technology Center, then a researcher at the Advanced Technology Group in

Roseville, California Roseville is the most populous city in Placer County, California, located within the Sacramento metropolitan area. As of 2019, the US Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 141,500. Interstate 80 runs through Roseville and State Rout ...

. Allen was elected as a director of the

Computer Measurement Group The Computer Measurement Group (CMG), founded in 1974, is a worldwide non-profit organization of data processing professionals whose work involves measuring and managing the performance of computing systems. In this context, ''performance'' is und ...

(CMG), and selected to be the keynote speaker at two international conferences. He was an invited speaker at the ''Sixth International Conference on Modelling Techniques and Tools for Computer Performance Evaluation'', held in

Edinburgh, Scotland Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

in September 1992. In 1994, he received the Computer Measurement group's A. A. Michelson award for technical excellence and professional contributions as a teacher and inspirer of others.

Work

Allen is most well known as the author of the book, ''Probability, Statistics, and Queueing Theory with Computer Science Applications''. Originally published in 1978, and still in print in 2007, it is widely used as a university textbook, by practitioners of computer performance analysis, and by those wishing to apply

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

, statistics and

queueing theory Queueing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. A queueing model is constructed so that queue lengths and waiting time can be predicted. Queueing theory is generally considered a branch of operations research because the ...

techniques to solve problems in other fields, such as

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve dec ...

management science Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

, and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

. At IBM and Hewlett-Packard, Allen's students were typically

systems engineer Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking p ...

s and project managers, not computer scientists. He encouraged them to improve upon the informal approaches to computer performance analysis that were (and still are) in common use, applying more

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the exp ...

and using mathematical models to predict how the performance of a computer system would behave as workloads increased. He began his 1994 book, Computer Performance Analysis with Mathematica, with this observation: He concluded the book by quoting

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man". Allen commented, ''"I hope the reader fits Shaw's definition of unreasonable, and wants to change things for the better"''.

Publications

*1978. ''Probability, statistics, and queueing theory : with computer science applications'' *1994. ''Introduction to computer performance analysis with Mathematica''. *1996. ''Mathematica CD-ROM library''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Arnold People in information technology American operations researchers University of California, Los Angeles alumni