ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents an introduction to the theory of large deviations, through jump Markov processes. It provides an easy application of the basic theory, and can thus be used to motivate the more general process-level theory. The book summarizes some basic results concerning the Poisson process, and more generally jump Markov processes. The prerequisites for such courses are probability and analysis at a level of first-year graduate courses for engineering students, or senior-level courses for students of mathematics. The field of communication and computer networks is bustling with activity. One of the active areas falls under the rubric “performance.” Researchers and development engineers tackle systems that are huge, complex and fast; think of the telephone network in the United States.
