Partnering For Performance: A Performance Minded Organization (Part 1/4)
Published by cyang on
It is every company’s dream and worst nightmare at the same time. Your website, app, or IoT device receives a massive influx of traffic and revenue is going up! But your app and infrastructure were not ready and now they’re bouncing away like elusive jackalopes and turning to social media to share their negative experience. Revenue and success is slipping away.
Whether you’re building a website, a mobile application, an API, or even smart connected hardware you will eventually find that you need to optimize performance to improve user experience, increase scale to handle additional traffic,, support new devices, or identify bugs and poorly configuration infrastructure that are limiting your product’s ultimate success.
In this four-part series, Outsourcing DevOps, we’re going to look at how you can move your organization forward by bringing in expert performance engineers, setting them up for success, and convincing all the stakeholders around you that it’s the right thing to do.
Part 1 starts in the most obvious of places by answering why you should bring in outside help for your performance engineering needs: 5 Reasons To Outsource Your Performance And Load Testing Projects
Everyone knows that before you can release you have to load test. When is the right time? Do you really need help?
If you outsource, do you lose control? Will you pay too much? Will you sacrifice quality?
These are all valid questions and concerns; however, there are many sound reasons to consider outsourcing your performance and load testing projects.
Not only are in-house performance engineers expensive but the investment in performance tools and infrastructure can be costly as well. If your company doesn’t want the long-term investment of purchasing a mature performance testing tool or suite of tools then outsourcing is a very appealing option.
Specialized companies, like TPC, can help balance between budget, time and staff by assessing your applications’ requirements and utilizing our highly trained staff to meet your needs.
1. Performance Engineering Is Complicated
We applaud the companies who have created permanent positions focused on performance engineering but have you ever read one of their job descriptions for the role? They’re littered with words like create, design, execute, profile, analyze, interpret, execute, mine, measure, monitor, predict, model, mentor, plan, deploy, define, report, solve, alleviate, tune, and more. That’s a very tall order – especially if you only have room for one additional headcount! In fact, most thorough QA and performance engineering tasks cannot be performed by just one individual. Instead, you may need a few individuals who are able to apply their expertise collectively.2. In-house Isn’t Always Cheaper
Let’s say you do happen to find an individual who can do it all when it comes to performance engineering. Most likely they’ll command a premium salary that you may not be able to afford. So why not buy part of one? If you only need a performance engineer for 40 hours a month then just outsource those tasks to someone who can apply their experience and knowledge based on your demands. Paying for a bucket of hours instead of a FTE will tremendously save on costs.
3. Reduce Internal Politics
When a performance engineering project is outsourced, stars align and doors open because the entire organization knows that an investment has been made and can easily be wasted. The internal politics and dragging of feet are overcome to reach a speedier “ready” state for productive performance testing.