Scott Barber- CTO, PerfTestPlus 
Date: May 25 - 1:00 PM
Track - Road to Quality
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Session Abstract:  Imagine you are reaching the end of a major software development project. Functional testing is in its final phase and so far hasn’t revealed any ship-stopping defects. You have planned and developed your performance tests to validate the requirements you were given, and finally, the project is entering two weeks of performance requirements validation, which is anticipated to be the last activity before go-live.  Your first performance test demonstrated that at a ten-user load, the system response time increased by two orders of magnitude—meaning a page that returned in one second with one user on the system returns in one hundred seconds with ten users on the system. The second test showed that at a fifty-user load, the system fails miserably with Java exceptions prominently displayed on every requested page. But the system is intended to support 2,500 simultaneous users! 

Sound familiar? That is exactly what happened to me the first time I came onto a project to do performance testing at the end of development—rather than at the beginning. Think about how this performance testing effort would have been different if there had been a plan to determine the actual capacity of the selected server hardware, to verify the available network bandwidth, to execute some preliminary tests on critical functionality, and to shake out configuration errors in the load balancers when those items first became available. In this presentation Scott Barber will demonstrate an approach to doing exactly that…without extending the project schedule and with enough supporting documentation to satisfy SLAs and auditors.

Speaker Bio: Scott Barber is the CTO of PerfTestPlus, Inc. (www.perftestplus.com) and Co-Founder of the Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR – www.performance-workshop.org). Scott's particular specialties are testing and analyzing performance for complex systems, developing customized testing methodologies for organizations, embedded systems testing, testing biometric identification and security systems, group facilitation and authoring instructional or educational materials.  In recognition of his standing as a thought leading performance tester in the industry, Scott was invited to be a monthly columnist for and contributor to Software Test and Performance Magazine, to contribute other top software testing print and on-line publications, to participate in industry advancing professional workshops and present at a wide variety of software development and testing venues.  His presentations are well received by attendees of industry and academic conferences, college classes, local user groups and individual corporations. Scott is active in his personal mission of improving the state of performance testing across the industry by collaborating with other industry authors, thought leaders and expert practitioners as well as volunteering his time to establish and grow industry organizations.  His tireless dedication to the advancement of software testing in general and specifically performance testing is often referred to as a hobby in addition to a job due to the enjoyment he gains from his efforts.