Project context
o
Determining the capacity of the application's infrastructure, as well as
determining the future resources required to deliver acceptable application
performance.
o
Comparing different system configurations to determine which works best for
both the application and the business.
o
Verifying that the application exhibits the desired performance characteristics,
within budgeted resource utilization constraints.
·
Assessing adequacy of developed software performance by:
o
Determining the application's desired performance characteristics before and
after changes to the software.
o
Providing comparisons between the application's current and desired
performance characteristics.
·
Improving the efficiency of performance tuning by:
o
Analyzing the behavior of the application at various load levels.
o
Identifying bottlenecks in the application.
o
Providing information related to the speed, scalability, and stability of a
product prior to production release, thus enabling you to make informed
decisions about whether and when to tune the system.
Project Context
For a performance testing project to be successful, both the approach to testing
performance and the testing itself must be relevant to the context of the project. Without
an understanding of the project context, performance testing is bound to focus on only
those items that the performance tester or test team assumes to be important, as opposed
to those that truly are important, frequently leading to wasted time, frustration, and
conflicts.
The project context is nothing more than those things that are, or may become, relevant to
achieving project success. This may include, but is not limited to:
·
The overall vision or intent of the project
·
Performance testing objectives
·
Performance success criteria
·
The development life cycle
·
The project schedule
·
The project budget
·
Available tools and environments
·
The skill set of the performance tester and the team
·
The priority of detected performance concerns
·
The business impact of deploying an application that performs poorly
Some examples of items that may be relevant to the performance-testing effort in your
project context include:
·
Project vision. Before beginning performance testing, ensure that you understand
the current project vision. The project vision is the foundation for determining what
