Ensuring responsiveness and scalability for distributed applications
Jerome Rolia, Vidar Vetland, Greg Hills · Conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative Research · 1995
In this paper we describe several application design features that can impact the performance of distributed applications. Our goal is to identify restrictions on design that lead to responsive scalable distributed applications. A performance model is proposed that can be used to describe distributed application features and to consider the performance impact of design alternatives. Model building techniques are surveyed along with information sources for the models. Performance evaluation techniques predict the performance behavior of systems described by models. Several techniques are described and presented in the context of a performance engineering method for distributed applications. These techniques should be applied early in the development of an application to identify necessary design restrictions. The restrictions on design should become part of the software architecture of the application so they do not have to be rediscovered.