Performance prediction of J2EE applications using messaging protocols

Abstract

Predicting the performance of component-based applications is difficult due to the complexity of the underlying component technology. This problem is exacerbated when a messaging protocol is introduced to create a loosely coupled software architecture. Messaging uses asynchronous communication, and must address quality of service issues such as message persistence and flow control. In this paper, we present an approach to predicting the performance of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) applications using messaging services. The prediction is done during application design, without access to the application implementation. This is achieved by modeling the interactions among J2EE and messaging components using queuing network models, calibrating the performance model with architecture attributes associated with these components, and populating the model parameters using a lightweight, application-independent benchmark. Benchmarking avoids the need for prototype testing in order to obtain the value of model parameters, and thus reduces the performance prediction effort. A case study is carried out to predict the performance of a J2EE application with asynchronous communication. Analysis of the resulting predictions shows the error is within 15%. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.