Chapter 3. Detailing the Business Transaction

This chapter includes the following topics:

• Understanding profiling terminology

• Classifying applications

• Profiling methodology

• Baseline overview

• The new application

• The deployed application

• Optimizing the application

• Verifying application delivery

Before considering application optimization, you have to be able to understand what it is you are dealing with. Consider stocking up for a big family meal. The first thing you have to do is pay a visit to your cupboards to see what you have in stock before you can make a judgment on what it is you need to replace or replenish. You would not consider going out and blindly buying up goods, because it would be wasteful, and in all honesty, inefficient. When you optimize your applications, you must go through the same process. You need to assess what you already have, and from there you can make a decision on what needs to be added (hardware, software quality of service [QoS] mechanism) and what needs to be replenished (such as routing path, application architecture, and so on).

This chapter covers the details of how to profile the application identified and defined in Chapter 2, "Understanding Your Business." This chapter begins by defining the terminology used throughout this book. Then it characterizes those parts of the business transaction that should be handled and monitored, identifying which parts are active and time sensitive (and which parts are not), to ensure that protocols and policies are correctly applied. It covers profiling applications in a lab environment (predeployment) and applications already in operation that need to be optimized to improve the delivery.