Last year (in this article) I asserted that monitoring of all user operations on an on-going basis was highly valuable. At the time I was not aware of any automated tools to do this task, meaning that solutions would need to be implemented on a per-application basis. In the worst case, this could mean laboriously adding logging statements into application code and then providing analysis mechanism to extract meaningful information from this logging. Continue reading ‘Monitoring all user interactions’ »
Archive for the ‘Capacity Management’ Category
In a previous employment, the employer had an operational department who were responsible for signing off the performance of a system before it was allowed in to production. Their method for doing this was working with delivery projects to make sure that the project provided sufficient evidence that the system they were delivering would perform in the long term. They would also check that the operational managers had access to appropriate mechanisms to monitor that the systems were performing according to the evidence that had been provided. When requested to do so they would provide expertise to the delivery projects in the appropriate use of capacity management techniques, but they were primarily a gate keeping and monitoring function. Continue reading ‘Governance of Capacity Management’ »
When creating a system it is common knowledge that its performance is important, since users of the system will be put off it is deemed to be too slow. It is also common knowledge that performance testing tools, such as OpenSTA, can create load tests to help make sure that your system will perform. The use of these and other tools and techniques to make sure that the system as a whole performs well is, however, rather less well understood. As part of the consultancy approach that I use I have created a document that outlines an approach to fitting performance testing into a company’s development process. The document provides a context for managing system performance, and was originally written to use during consultancy assignments. I have decided to offer it as a Free Resource for those who might find it useful.
The document more describes the management approach required for the Capacity Management, rather than going into the technical details. As such, it does not assume detail technical knowledge or go into the mathematical basis for performance modelling or testing. At 18 pages it is quite short for one of my documents, and can be downloaded from here.
