Performance prototyping: A simulation methodology for software performance engineering

The authors describe a modeling methodology that extends software performance engineering to handle large multitasking applications. The objective was to provide throughput projections and design evaluation for a development team building an image/fax server intended to function in a larger distributed image processing application. Software performance engineering is reviewed. The methodology described integrates analytic modeling with real-time simulation to construct a performance prototype. The application of the methodology to the performance engineering of the image/fax server is reported.