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Management of Performance Requirements for Information Systems

Published: 01 December 2000 Publication History

Abstract

Management of performance requirements is a major challenge for information systems as well as other software systems. This is because performance requirements (e.g., a student records system should have good response time for registering students ) can have a global impact on the target system. In addition, there are interactions and trade-offs among performance requirements, other nonfunctional requirements (NFRs, or software quality attributes, e.g., accuracy), and the numerous alternatives for the target system. To provide a systematic approach to managing performance requirements, this paper presents a Performance Requirements Framework (PeRF). It integrates and catalogues a variety of kinds of knowledge of information systems and performance. These include performance concepts, Software Performance Engineering (SPE) principles for building performance into systems, and information systems development knowledge (including requirements, design, implementation, and performance). In addition, layered structures organize performance knowledge and the development process. All this knowledge is represented using an existing goal-oriented approach, the NFR Framework, which offers a developer-directed graphical treatment for stating NFRs, analyzing and interrelating them, and determining the impact of decisions upon NFRs. This approach allows customized solutions to be built, taking into account the characteristics of the particular domain. The use of PeRF in managing performance requirements is illustrated in a study of performance requirements and other NFRs for a university's student records system. This paper concludes with a summary of other studies of information systems, tool support, and directions for future work.

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cover image IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering  Volume 26, Issue 12
December 2000
96 pages
ISSN:0098-5589
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IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2000

Author Tags

  1. NFR Framework
  2. Performance Requirements Framework (PeRF).
  3. Performance requirements
  4. Software Performance Engineering (SPE)
  5. Year 2000 compliance
  6. catalogues of performance and development knowledge
  7. conflicts and trade-offs
  8. information systems
  9. nonfunctional requirements
  10. requirements engineering
  11. semantic data models (SDMs)
  12. student records system

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  • (2008)An architecture evaluation of campus systems toward SOAProceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications, and Systems10.1145/1506270.1506305(1-4)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2008
  • (2008)Performance Test Design Process and Its Implementation Patterns for Multi-services SystemsProceedings of the 20th IFIP TC 6/WG 6.1 international conference on Testing of Software and Communicating Systems: 8th International Workshop10.1007/978-3-540-68524-1_11(135-152)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2008
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