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Sensoria Bibliography Site A Framework for Characterization and Analysis of Software System Scalability
Leticia Duboc, David S. Rosenblum, Tony Wicks
abstract:
The term \emph{scalability} appears frequently in computing literature, but it is a term that is poorly defined and poorly understood. The lack of a clear, consistent and systematic treatment of scalability makes it difficult to evaluate claims of scalability and to compare claims from different sources. This paper presents a framework for precisely characterizing and analyzing the scalability of a software system. The framework treats scalability as a \emph{multi-criteria optimization problem} and captures the dependency relationships that underlie typical notions of scalability. The paper presents the results of a case study in which the framework and analysis method were applied to a real-world system, demonstrating that it is possible to develop a precise, systematic characterization of scalability and to use the characterization to compare the scalability of alternative system designs.
