This practical book provides a step-by-step approach to testing mission-critical applications for scalability and performance before they're deployed - a vital topic to which that other books devote one chapter, if that. Businesses today live and die by network applications and web services, yet because of the increasing complexity of these programs, and the pressure to deploy them quickly, many professionals don't take the time to ensure that they'll perform well and scale effectively. The Art of Application Performance Testing explains the complete life cycle of the testing process, and demonstrates best practices to help you plan, gain approval for, coordinate, and conduct performance tests on your applications.With this book, you'll learn to: set realistic performance testing goals; implement an effective application performance testing strategy; interpret performance test results; cope with different application technologies and architectures; use automated performance testing tools; test traditional local applications, web-based applications, and Web Services (SOAs); overcome the factors often overlooked in most performance tests. Written by a consultant with 30 years of experience in the IT industry and over 12 years experience with performance testing, this easy-to-read book is illustrated with real-world examples and packed with practical advice. The Art of Application Performance Testing thoroughly explains the pitfalls of an inadequate testing strategy, and offers you a robust, structured approach for ensuring that your applications perform well and scale effectively when the need arises.