I am going to post a series of articles that explain how can you tune and optimize your web application.
The purpose of this article series is to provide you with a primer on the concepts and terminology of application performance and optimization.
For many of you, these are concepts that are familiar, but with which you are not necessarily comfortable. Application performance issues are often paid little attention in smaller Web applications with low hit counts. However, these issues start to feel more important as your application starts experiencing higher hit counts and heavier loads. It is an unfortunate reality that application performance behaves in a nonlinear way.
To borrow a phrase from the stock market, this means that current (application) performance is not an indicator of future results. Loosely speaking, performance refers to an application's ability to service user requests under varying load conditions. Performance is measured by multiple kinds of metrics, including throughput and response time, to name a few. Performance benchmarks describe the goal you are trying to achieve. Important benchmark indicators include scalability and availability.
Optimization refers to fine-tuning an application for performance, based on your goals and the expected load on the application. Optimization is generally an iterative process where you apply your knowledge of the technology to address bottlenecks in performance.
The iterative aspect of the process comes about through a cycle of testing and tweaking until you have achieved your performance goals for the application. We cover all of these topics in detail, both later in this chapter as well as throughout this book.
Application performance issues are often ignored until the last minute, precisely when the application may already be experiencing heavy loads. Applications should be designed for optimum performance as a forethought, not as an afterthought. Optimization, by its nature, is a process that applies to a completed application. It is also an ongoing process that does not stop once the application is in production. So, there are different aspects of designing for performance.
For many of you, these are concepts that are familiar, but with which you are not necessarily comfortable. Application performance issues are often paid little attention in smaller Web applications with low hit counts. However, these issues start to feel more important as your application starts experiencing higher hit counts and heavier loads. It is an unfortunate reality that application performance behaves in a nonlinear way.
To borrow a phrase from the stock market, this means that current (application) performance is not an indicator of future results. Loosely speaking, performance refers to an application's ability to service user requests under varying load conditions. Performance is measured by multiple kinds of metrics, including throughput and response time, to name a few. Performance benchmarks describe the goal you are trying to achieve. Important benchmark indicators include scalability and availability.
Optimization refers to fine-tuning an application for performance, based on your goals and the expected load on the application. Optimization is generally an iterative process where you apply your knowledge of the technology to address bottlenecks in performance.
The iterative aspect of the process comes about through a cycle of testing and tweaking until you have achieved your performance goals for the application. We cover all of these topics in detail, both later in this chapter as well as throughout this book.
Application performance issues are often ignored until the last minute, precisely when the application may already be experiencing heavy loads. Applications should be designed for optimum performance as a forethought, not as an afterthought. Optimization, by its nature, is a process that applies to a completed application. It is also an ongoing process that does not stop once the application is in production. So, there are different aspects of designing for performance.
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