F14-11/4: Infuriatingly Fun Performance Puzzles

Track/s: Performance

You remember George? He’s back to his old tricks! The CPU % was lower than normal on the app server. The calls to the 3rd party were sub-second and not queued. The data sources used were showing consistently increased network utilization, but > 75% available bandwidth.

This entertaining and mentally frustrating session will present several “somewhat common” performance puzzlers and give attendees time to work in small groups to see if they can determine the root-cause for the performance issue. Bonus points will be given for proper recommendations for a fix to the problem. Additional bonus points will be given for recommending what type of testing may have prevented the specific issue.

Session Takeaways:

  • Practice of performance problem-solving techniques.
  • Specific performance problem identification and remedy.
  • Practical application of root-cause analysis skills.
  • Group collaboration on performance analysis.


Download Presentation

Please Note: The presentations are intended for attendees only. The presentations page is password protected – contact info@softwaretestpro.com for verification of attendance and the password to access the presentation.


Session Speaker:

Mark Tomlinson – Performagician, West Evergreen Consulting, LLC
Mark TomlinsonMark Tomlinson is a performance engineering and software testing consultant. His career began in 1992 with a comprehensive two-year test for a life-critical transportation system, a project which captured his interest for software testing, quality assurance, and test automation. That first test project sought to prevent trains from running into each other — and Mark has metaphorically been preventing “train wrecks” for his customers for the past 20 years. He has broad experience with real-world scenario testing of large and complex systems and is regarded as a leading expert in software testing automation with a specific emphasis on performance. For the majority of Mark’s career, he has worked for companies as a testing practitioner and consultant using the leading products for performance testing, profiling, and measurement. He has also consistently established close ties and relationships with the major vendors who create these tools. Mark worked for six years at Microsoft Corporation as a performance consultant and engineer in the Microsoft Services Labs, in the Enterprise Engineering Center and in the SQL Server labs. His efforts to foster the success of Microsoft’s top-tier Enterprise customers was focused on their early adoption of Microsoft products as part of mission-critical operations. In 2008, as the LoadRunner Product Manager at HP Software, Mark led the team to deliver leading innovations for performance testing and engineering as part of HP’s suite of performance validation and management products. Mark now offers coaching, training and consulting to help customers adopt modern performance testing and engineering strategies, practices, and behaviors for better performing technology systems.

Speaker Details:

Mark Tomlinson – Performagician, West Evergreen Consulting, LLC
Twitter: @mtomlins
Facebook: Mark Tomlinson
LinkedIn: Mark Tomlinson
Website: PerfBytes.com
Blog: MTomlins.blogspot.com
Past Events: STPCon, STAR East, STAR West, TestBash, CAST