Performance Tuning

Performance tuning is the improvement of system performance. This is typically a computer application, but the same methods can be applied to economic markets, bureaucracies or other complex systems. The motivation for such activity is called a performance problem, which can be real or anticipated. Most systems will respond to increased load with some degree of decreasing performance. A system's ability to accept higher load is called scalability, and modifying a system to handle a higher load is synonymous to performance tuning.

Systematic tuning follows these steps:

• Assess the problem and establish numeric values that categorize acceptable behavior
• Measure the performance of the system before modification
• Identify the part of the system that is critical for improving the performance. This is called the bottleneck
• Modify that part of the system to remove the bottleneck
• Measure the performance of the system after modification

A performance problem may be identified by slow or unresponsive systems. This usually occurs because high system loading, causing some part of the system to reach a limit in its ability to respond. This limit within the system is referred to as a bottleneck.

A handful of techniques are used to improve performance. Among them are code optimization, load balancing, caching strategy, and distributed computing, and self-tuning.