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Performance Assurance for IT Systems emphasizes the importance of addressing performance and technology-related issues from the feasibility and bid stages. It promotes the concept of Performance Assurance throughout the entire system lifecycle, covering technology, relevant processes, and people-related topics. The book consists of two major parts: Part I covers the processes deployed throughout the system lifecycle, including the choice of technologies, client requirements, sizing, stress testing, and capacity management; Part II provides a technology foundation made up of brief primers on hardware and software technologies, discussing key factors that influence performance and help management make informed decisions on technical risk.
List of contents
INDIVIDUAL AREAS OF INTEREST. Preparing for the challenge. Caveat emptor. Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks. Non-functional requirements and solutions. Hardware sizing: The crystal ball gazing act. Bid logistics. Designing for performance, scalability, and resilience. Awareness of queues. Non-functional acceptance. Post-production. Softer issues. So what? TECHNOLOGY FOUNDATION. Introduction to technology tasters. Operating systems. CPU basics. Memory. Hard disk basics. Server infrastructure. Multiprocessors (shared memory). Hard disk: Fibre Channel, SAN and NAS. File access basics. Relational database basics. Back-end server clusters. Network basics. Firewalls. Server load balancing. Web server and cache server. LDAP server. Modern server-side development technologies.
About the author
Brian King
Summary
Performance Assurance for IT Systems emphasizes the importance of addressing performance and technology-related issues from the beginning of the planning process, at the feasibility and bid stages. It promotes the concept of Performance Assurance throughout the entire system lifecycle, covering technology, relevant processes, and people-related topics.
This accessible, jargon-free book shows how to meet the increasing pressure to deliver proposals and systems in shorter timescales, emphasizing pragmatic, cost-effective, and well-designed systems. The book consists of two major parts: Part I covers the processes deployed throughout the system lifecycle, including the choice of technologies, client requirements, sizing, stress testing, and capacity management; Part II provides a technology foundation made up of brief primers on hardware and software technologies, discussing key factors that influence performance and helping management make informed decisions on technical risk.
The author includes references to problems encountered on "real life" projects, and provides insight valuable to a variety of IT professionals, from technical architects and developers to IT management.
