The primary reason to establish a performance baseline is to enable you to quantify between changes in performance and changes in your load or application. The most difficult part of establishing a baseline is determining which operations are critical to the effective use of the system. You want the list of operations to be complete and concise. Too many items increases the amount of work needed to establish reliable baselines.
The basic rules outlined below allow you to narrow down the number of operations that need baselines to a manageable number. You might want to have two sets of baselines—one for daytime processing and one for end-of-day processing.
When generating your list of operations to baseline, include the following:
Tasks that are done many times throughout the day (such as creating orders, process control, and data entry tasks)
Tasks that are important to the user (such as Web site queries, customer support screens, and order entry tasks)
When generating your list of operations to baseline, do not include the following:
Periodic tasks (such as monthly and weekly reports)
Little-used portions of your application
Reporting, as it generally falls into the above two categories, and you can schedule most reporting outside of your primary operating hours
Tasks that are done many times throughout the day (such as creating orders, process control, and data entry tasks)
