Performance Goals

Many considerations go into establishing performance goals for the database server and the applications that it supports. Be clear and consistent about articulating performance goals and priorities, so that you can provide realistic and consistent expectations about the performance objectives for your application. Consider the following questions when you establish performance goals:

• Is your top priority to maximize transaction throughput, minimize response time for specific queries, or achieve the best overall mix?
• What sort of mix between simple transactions, extended decision-support queries, and other types of requests does the database server typically handle?
• At what point are you willing to trade transaction-processing speed for availability or the risk of loss for a particular transaction?
• Is this database server instance used in a client/server configuration? If so, what are the networking characteristics that affect its performance?
• What is the maximum number of users that you expect?
• Is your configuration limited by memory, disk space, or CPU resources?

The answers to these questions can help you set realistic performance goals for your resources and your mix of applications.