"Performance
Assurance for IT Systems provides for a welcome addition to the literature on
building quality IT systems. Its unique contribution lies in its concentration
on the pre-production stage of the project life cycle. It is a useful
complement to the existing body of work that emphasizes performance tuning and
other post production issues ... Overall, this book is both well-written and
edited ...If you are actively involved in any phase of the SDLC or RAD
processes, then Performance Assurance for IT Systems should be a must read and
a welcome addition to your personal or corporate library." Benchmarking: An International Journal
"It makes for a
handy consolidated reference guide. It will be a welcome resource for technical
architects, performance analysts, and performance testing professionals alike. It
is an important contribution to the topic of IT performance assurance/testing
and a great reference book for your software quality assurance and testing
library … "Performance Assurance for IT Systems" offers a
comprehensive look at many of the processes required for studying, designing,
building, and supporting a well performing IT system through the entire system
lifecycle. I highly recommend it." StickyMinds.com
"King knows his
subject well, and enjoys writing about it. This well-written and enjoyable book
describes information technology (IT) system performance assurance methods ... Reviews.com
The views
that are expressed below come from readers who are happy to be quoted either
publicly or anonymously. Any changes to their original words are purely
cosmetic, mainly to turn any phrases into sentences. The reader confirms that
he/she is happy with the final version before it is added to the site. The
order of the feedback is chronological, i.e. the oldest comes first. Please
email me your thoughts on Performance Assurance for IT Systems. Ideally,
it should include:
David Oxley, Solutions Architect with 16 years experience
Mike Tidy, Technical Architect and Project Manager with 36
years experience
Mike Chiu, Principal Consultant with 39 years experience
Piet de Visser, DBA with 14 years experience
Chris Young, Solutions Architect with 20+ years experience
A Principal Consultant and Expert Witness with 30+ years
experience
Open Performance
Assurance for IT Systems at any page, and within ten minutes of engrossing
reading, you will have achieved the following:
I thoroughly recommend this
book to any IT professional who is, or is about to be, involved in a bid or
project that will require bespoke application development, integration with
commercial off-the-shelf products, or, of course, specific performance tuning.
Theory and practice are covered, providing the right level of technical
background to refresh your memory and teach new topics, equipping you for your
next performance-related piece of work.
The book is
eminently readable. I particularly enjoyed the “war stories”, many of which
struck a chord. There are reminders of performance-related factors that many
projects were oblivious of.
Part one of the book (the
processes) was quite an easy read, reinforcing many of my own feelings and
attitude to keeping performance to the fore from the very inception of a
project. It provides many useful reminders to those of us with a history and
things to add to the check lists for those who are newer to the game. I think
it should be mandatory reading for everyone working on bids and projects,
including the project managers and less technical people. I was surprised how
easy it was to read sequentially; most text books can only be digested by
dipping in and out.
The technology tasters in
the second part of the book were very useful, particularly those on CPUs and
aspects of communications.
As I anticipated, you say
less on data modelling/database design apart from outlining the general (but
nevertheless very good) principles. To be fair, you do point out that this area
is quite well covered by other publications.
The style, tinged
throughout with realism (I think you use the word "cynicism"), I find
entertaining - with not a little tongue-in-cheek. Your comments on
psychological factors are just as useful as those on technical issues. I hope
they do not go over the head of younger readers, since the lessons to be
learned are valuable.
Reading Performance
Assurance for IT Systems provides valuable pragmatic advice to managers,
designers and implementers on how to address system performance throughout the
project life-cycle and avoid the many pit-falls out there. All too easily,
performance is not viewed as an issue, or at least not one that merits time and
money to be spent on it, until it is too late.
The first part of the
book is an easy-to-read account of how, where and when performance should be
considered from project inception through to live running. For the seasoned
veteran, the anecdotes and war stories re-told will sound familiar bells and
bring a faint smile of recognition "yes that happened to me too" !
The technical tasters
give a useful outline of modern technologies and how they may impact
performance. But importantly, the book combines a presentation of both
technical and softer issues, the latter relating to the human interactions and
people issues that beset projects. When it comes down to it, the success or
otherwise of a system project depends upon the individuals that have a part to
play, what they do and the way they inter-relate.
The content is of good
quality and it is clearly written. I have made use of some of the material in
one of my recent cases.