Performance Prediction Model for Service Oriented Applications

Software architecture plays a significant role in determining the quality of a software system. It exposes important system properties for consideration and analysis. Performance related properties are frequently of interest in determining the acceptability of a given software design. This paper focuses mainly on developing an architectural model for applications that use service oriented architecture (SOA). This enables predicting the performance of the application even before it is completely developed. The performance characteristics of the components and connectors are modeled using queuing network model. This approach facilitates the performance prediction of service oriented applications. Further, it also helps in identification of various bottlenecks. A prototype service oriented application has been implemented and the actual performance is measured. This is compared against the predicted performance in order to analyze the accuracy of the prediction.