Chapter 1: Performance Methodology

Chapter 1: Performance Methodology

How Do You Look at Performance?

Over the years, the meaning of performance tuning has become "getting as much out of the computers as possible," regardless of the quality of the application programs running on them. This is in contrast to earlier days, when we examined all aspects of every component that made up a computer system, not just the hardware.

Today, economies of time, convenience, and cost prohibit this exhaustive approach to attaining good performance. Instead, the people responsible for computer systems are expected to keep them running smoothly and efficiently, without expending much time or money. One result I have often seen is systems and support personnel using obsolete tools to diagnose and attempt to fix sophisticated configurations. A second result I have seen is insufficient systems-related work, which can lead to once-responsive computer systems becoming slow and, in the worst case, unusable.

This change in management perspective can be directly attributed to the cost-saving and down-sizing phenomena that the computer industry has been experiencing over the past several years. During the growth years, many of us had the luxury of hiring others to share the burden of managing multiple systems. However, the recessions of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and pressure to reduce non-revenue-producing staff, have led to outsourcing of the data processing function and trimming of support resources. Unfortunately, the work necessary to keep increasingly complex systems functioning smoothly has increased, not decreased.


	Tip	It is impossible to keep every...

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High Performance Cluster Configuration System Management

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Chapter 1: Performance Methodology

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