A Conceptual ‘Performance Mode’ for Web Applications

What is it?

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Dedicated mode to help Web Applications weather peak or unexpected traffic.

Why do we need it?

Often, performance heavy or resource intensive features take a toll on the Web Application. 

How would it work?

There needs to be a mechanism to intelligently turn off features or functionalities depending on their ‘PSR (Performance / Scalability / Reliability) cost’.

Step 1 – Measure

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It is essential to weigh each feature set within the Application against their PSR Impact. Loosely this can be done by measuring the resource utilization impact of the specific feature – namely CPU, Memory, Disk and Network I/O’s.

Step 2 – Categorize

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Split features into three ‘Categories’ or ‘Buckets’ based on their Performance Weight. Let us for example take ‘Low’, ‘Medium’ and ‘High’ impact categories.

Step 3 – Monitor and Switch

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Continuously monitor Traffic Usage in Production Environment. Once traffic reaches a known or tested limit (let us say 85% of Peak Capacity) disable ‘High’ and ‘Medium’ performance impact features whereby the Web Application now runs in a light mode consequently only allowing access to core features; thereby preventing downtime and also perhaps enabling reaction time for support teams (for example add additional server capacity to handle the excess load)

By: Manoj Mohanan


Also published on Medium.

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