Incorporating Software Performance Engineering Methods and Practices into the Software Development Life Cycle

In many software development projects, attention is only paid to performance concerns after functional testing, when it usually too late to remedy disabling performance problems. Early attention to performance concerns and early planning of performance requirements and performance testing can prevent debacles like the early rollout of healthcare.gov while addressing cross-cutting concerns such as scalability, reliability and, security. Performance engineering methods may be integrated into all phases of the software lifecycle, from the conception of a system to requirements specification, architecture, testing, and finally to production. Performance expectations can be managed by carefully specifying performance requirements. Reviewing the architecture of a system before design and implementation take place reduces the risk of designing a system that contains inherent performance vice. Performance modeling can be used to justify architectural and design decisions and to plan performance tests. The outputs of such performance tests enable us able to identify concurrent programming and other issues that would not be apparent in unit testing. Finally, risk is mitigated by avoiding design antipatterns that undermine scalability and performance.