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By, Paola Moretto Applications today are spidery and include thousands of possible optimization points. No matter how deep performance testing data are, developers are still at a loss when asked to derive meaningful and actionable data that pinpoint to bottlenecks in the application. You know things are slow, but you are left with the challenge of figuring out where to optimize. This presentation describes a new kind of analytics, called performance analytics, that provide tangible ways to root cause performance problems in today’s applications and clearly identify where and what to optimize.
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In her presentation at RailsConf 2015, Paola Moretto discusses the critical importance of application performance in the modern web environment. She emphasizes that speed and responsiveness are not just beneficial but essential for user satisfaction and business success. ‘Speed is product feature number one,’ as quoted from Larry Page, underlines the significance of performance in web applications. Moretto argues that poor performance not only harms user experience but can also adversely impact visibility, SEO rankings, conversion rates, and overall brand perception. Key points discussed include: - **Two Types of Data**: Moretto differentiates between live traffic data (monitoring) and synthetic traffic data (performance testing) as vital sources for understanding application performance. - **Monitoring Strategies**: She outlines various monitoring methods such as stack, infrastructure, and user behavior monitoring, highlighting the need to instrument systems thoroughly before drawing conclusions. - **Limitations of Monitoring**: Noting that monitoring acts ‘after the fact’, she compares it to calling for help after an accident, stressing the importance of performance testing to anticipate potential issues. - **Performance Testing**: This process simulates user scenarios in controlled environments, allowing developers to troubleshoot effectively and measure true user experience metrics beyond server stats. - **Continuous Testing**: Moretto advocates for continuous performance measurement to adapt to changes in both internal code and external environments, ensuring that applications remain responsive. - **Actionable Analytics**: She stresses the need for predictive analytics using machine learning techniques and data mining to proactively identify bottlenecks and improve performance health. Such methods enable developers to spot issues before they affect users. Moretto illustrates her points with anecdotes, including a case where an unnoticed change by a cloud provider led to significant application performance degradation, showcasing the necessity for continuous monitoring and testing. In conclusion, she reiterates that while monitoring is foundational, combining it with performance testing fosters a more resilient application capable of predicting and addressing performance challenges. Ultimately, the focus on speed as a core feature ensures efficient deployments and better user experiences, making performance analytics essential in the development process.
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