Performance Modeling in Industry: A Case Study on Storage Virtualization
ACM/IEEE 32nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2010), Software Engineering in Practice Track, page 1--10. New York, NY, USA, ACM, (May 2010)Acceptance Rate (Full Paper): 23\% (16/71).Abstract
In software engineering, performance and the integration of performance analysis methodologies gain increasing importance, especially for complex systems. Well-developed methods and tools can predict non-functional performance properties like response time or resource utilization in early design stages, thus promising time and cost savings. However, as performance modeling and performance prediction is still a young research area, the methods are not yet well-established and in wide-spread industrial use. This work is a case study of the applicability of the Palladio Component Model as a performance prediction method in an industrial environment. We model and analyze different design alternatives for storage virtualization on an IBM (Trademark of IBM in USA and/or other countries) system. The model calibration, validation and evaluation is based on data measured on a System z9 (Trademark of IBM in USA and/or other countries) as a proof of concept. The results show that performance predictions can identify performance bottlenecks and evaluate design alternatives in early stages of system development. The experiences gained were that performance modeling helps to understand and analyze a system. Hence, this case study substantiates that performance modeling is applicable in industry and a valuable method for evaluating design decisions.
