When working with one or more technologies, it is important for organizations to know about the scalability and performance characteristics of the technologies in a real world environment, while supporting applications with the usage profile that the organizations anticipate. Benchmarking is the process of testing the characteristics of different software and hardware components by performing stress tests that rely on real world usage scenarios and loads. Ideally, the testing phase of the benchmark and the test results derived should enable the creation of a capacity planning model that will allow the organization to accurately plan the infrastructure required to support current and future usage.

Depending on the number of technology components and organizations involved in the benchmark, the types of benchmarks can take on a different scope:

• From a client perspective, a benchmark can involve only one organization or can compare the usage load and related technology characteristics at different client sites. The latter approach allows for an even broader understanding of performance and scalability considerations.
• From a technology perspective, the most basic benchmark focuses on measuring and analyzing the characteristics of a single technology. More sophisticated benchmarks compare the performance and scalability of competing technologies, while the most complex initiatives focus on multiple complementary technologies that make up an end-to-end system and aim to quantify the interdependencies between different technologies and their different configurations.

Lunexa consultants can help clients conduct successful benchmarks that clearly describe the performance and scalability characteristics of different technologies. Having experience with managing and executing benchmarks from beginning to end, we can:

• Define the goals and scope of the benchmark
• Define the usage profile and scenarios for the benchmark
• Specify the baseline infrastructure and testing environment for the benchmark, including testing and measurement tools
• Develop the test scripts
• Execute the test
• Capture and analyze the test results
• Make capacity planning recommendations based on the results of the benchmark