Application profiling

Application Profiling is a passive application performance testing service that we first pioneered in the UK in 1997, and forms the basis of our expertise and test methodology in understanding how applications behave and perform.

Service Description

In essence, Application Profiling provides a simple method to understand the baseline performance of an n-tiered TCP-IP application and its impact upon a network. It provides a fast route to understand application performance efficiency, identify bottlenecks throughout the end-to-end system, and predict response-time performance when deployed across a wide-area network (WAN).

It is unique in its capabilities to deliver information and value to the business throughout the application life-cycle:

Development / Pre-Deployment

At this stage, the focus is on helping organisations develop quality applications with optimised levels of performance. We can work with your in-house development/DBA team, or external software house, to deliver the following value:

• Characterise how the application utilises network and server resources
• Identify application code inefficiencies and performance bottlenecks
• Understand & prioritise how the application and database SQL code can be optimised
• Capacity-planning of network & client-server infrastructures
• Predict WAN deployment performance

Deployment

When you're ready to deploy a new application, it's critical to understand what you're deploying in terms of the applications performance and response-time characteristics. Use us to:

• Benchmark / baseline transaction response-times
• Define realistic business SLA's
• Manage known performance bottlenecks

Production Support

Once the application is in production use, the focus is on maintaining performance and user service-levels. If problems occur, you need a fast fix. Or maybe you have to make changes to the network infrastructure and need to understand the impact of change? Use us to:

• Troubleshoot - "Is it the network, or the application?"
• Understand impact of infrastructure moves & changes
• Understand impact of network capacity upgrad

Service Benefits

Compared to other performance testing methodologies, Application Profiling offers several advantages in delivering value to both the business and technical project groups:

Fast

• Rapidly assimilates a benchmark response-time profile of application transactions (user tasks)
• Typically achieved within one working-day (single application

Authoratative

• Provides information fast, with unequivocal evidence of where performance bottlenecks are occurring within the application and/or the network or client-server infrastructure

Effective

• Reports provides immediately useful project information - not just complicated technical data
• Information provided of value across the entire spectrum of project disciplines:
  • Project management
  • Application developers, DBA's, technical architects
  • Application support
  • Network & server infrastructure support
  • Capacity planning

Simple

• The profiling methodology is as simple as it gets, requiring no complicated test-bench infrastructure, or a plethora of complex, expensive test-tools.
• Being a passive test methodology, there is no disruption to production systems or downtime of normal services.
• Minimal requirement of internal support resources

Value for money

• We deliver reliable information fast that gets results.

Please note that we are able to profile the performance of most types of TCP-IP based business applications, whether shrink-wrapped or bespoke, web-based, thin or thick-client.

The Application Profiling service can also complement and add considerable value to an application Load-Testing service.

See here for a summary of the service deliverables from an application profiling study.

Please see here for an example Application Profiling project report.

Please call us now on +44 (0) 870 2405519

or, for more information, email us at info@mydiagnosys.com