• Online, Self-Paced
Course Description

With the increasing complexity of the application development space, it has become paramount to implement performance engineering activities within the application development life cycle to uncover and correct performance issues. Central to performance engineering are the aspects of performance monitoring and testing that involve developing baseline measures and collecting benchmarking data by which to compare the applications performance against. This course introduces Application Performance Engineering and describes how performance can be monitored and tested against established performance objectives.

Learning Objectives

Application Performance Engineering

  • start the course
  • identify why software performance engineering is important, and describe monitoring, analyzing, and tuning
  • list key terms used in software performance engineering
  • describe the relationship between performance and risk in software development
  • list key performance engineering and testing activities
  • embed a performance culture in the software development life cycle and describe competencies for strong performance management

Performance Management

  • describe Application Performance Monitoring, Analysis, and Tuning
  • list the steps in the application performance management cycle
  • assess current performance monitoring ability
  • identify key performance monitoring, analyzing, and tuning tools, and describe some general types of reports from these tools (dashboards, general, baselines, and Health Checks)
  • identify considerations including solution sizing and application audits
  • identify considerations for performance monitoring

Performance Tests and System Evaluation

  • identify various types of application performance tests
  • identify and model the system architecture
  • recognize user-faced functionality and capture the business process and system functions

Setting Application Objectives

  • define key IT performance terminology
  • recognize the main categories of application performance objectives
  • identify a process for defining performance objectives
  • identify a process for determining resource usage targets
  • identify types of metrics that can be collected and how they can be captured
  • distinguish between performance requirements and goals in the context of application function and end users

Identifying Performance Targets

  • identify requirement acceptance criteria from the perspective of end users, business functions, technical infrastructure, and contracts
  • describe what a performance plan is and how it is used to maintain complete performance acceptance criteria

Developing Performance Testing Scenarios

  • describe usage scenarios
  • recognize how individual user data and variances are taken into account

Implementing the Test

  • identify characteristics of implementing the performance test
  • recognize how to validate and archive performance tests, and use baselines
  • identify how to collect baseline and benchmarking data
  • report findings and make recommendations for tuning an application

Practice: Phases in Performance Engineering

  • identify the key phases and activities in performance engineering

Framework Connections

The materials within this course focus on the Knowledge Skills and Abilities (KSAs) identified within the Specialty Areas listed below. Click to view Specialty Area details within the interactive National Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.