PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING - HOW WELL DOES IT REALLY WORK

As user expectations and the capabilities of technology spiral out of sight in one direction and budgets head the opposite way, our designers are being placed under ever-increasing pressures to produce more capable systems, faster, cheaper and more efficiently than ever before. Simulation techniques have been used in many fields over many years and the benefits are generally well quantified and understood. What is less clear though, is how an organization can structure its approach to a given design issue so as to gain the maximum returns in terms of design process, to ensure that the actual performance achieved by a system will meet its user's expectations. Performance engineering appears to offer a means of addressing this apparent dilemma - i.e. how can we be more confident of getting it right first time! This paper presents a case study on how performance engineering is being taken on board by a major UK organization whose aim is to improve the process by which systems are designed for performance. This paper not only includes a discussion on performance engineering but also gives details of the tool set required.