mySAP Toolbag for Performance Tuning and Stress Testing

14.2. Tracking and Evaluating Changes

Throughout this book, I've taken the position that changes—any changes—to a system, process, or workload, or to the infrastructure beneath a performance test, outside of the changes explicitly being tested, are frowned on, because these changes tend to make initial baselines worthless and therefore create more work for everyone. Some changes are much more manageable than others, though, so before we dive into iterative tuning, it makes sense to take a look at how to overcome or work through certain changes, especially those that seem to commonly crop up. And, by the same token, it's important to understand which changes are show stoppers—which ones require that a new baseline be established, for example, ...