Understanding Performance (Part 1)

 

As previously discussed in Nonfunctional Requirements, defining and measuring software quality attributes is critical to the success of any distributed application.  Performance is no exception.  Distributed applications must demonstrate performance in order to assure immediacy.  As such, companies must test and measure how fast their solution can respond under a peak load.

Performance is defined as the system’s ability to meet latency, throughput and resource utilization requirements.  Generally speaking, an application’s main objective is to maintain low latency, high throughput and low resource utilization.  Let’s define these three concepts briefly before drilling down to the details.

• Latency: Latency is defined as the period of time that one component in a system is waiting for a response from another component.   From an end user’s perspective, latency can also be defined as the amount of time that an end user has to wait between the time he clicks on a submit button and the time he receives a response.  Latency is measured in units of time such as seconds or milliseconds.
• Throughput: Throughput is defined as the amount of data that is transferred from one component to another in a specified unit of time.   It is typically measured in requests per second, or bytes per …

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