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 designer s are being placed under ever-increasing pressures to produce more cap able systems, faster, cheaper and more efficiently than ever before. S imulation techniques have been used in many fields over many years and the benefits are generally well quantified and understood. What is le ss 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 des ign process, to ensure that the actual performance achieved by a syste m will meet its user's expectations. Performance engineering appears t o 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 d iscussion on performance engineering but also gives details of the too l set required.