This rigourous and self-contained book describes mathematical and, in particular, stochastic methods to assess the performance of networked systems. It consists of three parts. The first part is a review on probability theory. Part two covers the classical theory of stochastic processes (Poisson, renewal, Markov and queuing theory), which are considered to be the basic building blocks for performance evaluation studies. Part three focuses on the relatively new field of the physics of networks. This part deals with the recently obtained insights that many very different large complex networks - such as the Internet, World Wide Web, proteins, utility infrastructures, social networks - evolve and behave according to more general common scaling laws. This understanding is useful when assessing the end-to-end quality of communications services, for example, in Internet telephony, real-time video and interacting games. Containing problems and solutions, this book is ideal for graduate students taking courses in performance analysis.

This volume of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series contains the set of papers accepted for presentation at the 5th International Workshop on Quality of future Internet Services (QofIS 2004) and at the two one-day workshops - locatedwithQofIS2004, namelythe1stInternationalWorkshoponQoSRouting (WQoSR 2004) and the 4th International Workshop on Internet Charging and QoS Technology (ICQT 2004). QofIS 2004, the ?fth international event, was organized under the umbrella of the E-NEXT Network of Excellence on Emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies, which started its activities in January 2004. QofIS 2004 took place on September 29 30, 2004 at the Telef onica premises in Barcelona, and was arranged by the Universitat Polit ecnica de Catalunya (UPC). QofIS 2004 in Barcelona followed the highly successful workshops in Stockholm in 2003, Zuric ] h in2002, Coimbrain2001, andBerlinin2000.ThepurposeofQofIS2004, asofall QofIS events, was to present and discuss design and implementation techniques for providing quality of service in the Internet. Theimpactofemergingterminals, mobilityandembeddedsystemsiscreating a new environment where networks are ambient. New challenges are opened by this new space where networks of interest ranging from personal networks to large-scale application networks need to be designed and often integrated. Protocol mechanisms for supporting quality of service at the di?erent layers of thenetworksneedtobeassessedandeventuallyredesignedinsuchenvironments. In this context, the focus of the QofIS 2004 workshop was on the provisioning of Quality of Service in the Emerging Networking Panorama, assessed by results of experiments carried out in simulation platforms and test-beds, and given the progressive irruption of optical technologies."

This rigorous, self-contained book describes mathematical and, in particular, stochastic and graph theoretic methods to assess the performance of complex networks and systems. It comprises three parts: the first is a review of probability theory; Part II covers the classical theory of stochastic processes (Poisson, Markov and queueing theory), which are considered to be the basic building blocks for performance evaluation studies; Part III focuses on the rapidly expanding new field of network science. This part deals with the recently obtained insight that many very different large complex networks - such as the Internet, World Wide Web, metabolic and human brain networks, utility infrastructures, social networks - evolve and behave according to general common scaling laws. This understanding is useful when assessing the end-to-end quality of Internet services and when designing robust and secure networks. Containing problems and solved solutions, the book is ideal for graduate students taking courses in performance analysis.