Siebel Performance Tuning Guide > Siebel Architecture and Infrastructure >

About Performance and Scalability

Performance and scalability are defined as follows in the context of this guide:

• Performance. A Siebel application's ability to function, generally measured in response time or throughput.

  For example, measures of performance may include the time required to log into the Siebel application or to display a Siebel view in the Siebel Web Client, or the volume of transactions (sometimes referred to as requests) that a server component can process in a given time period.

  Some typical inhibitors of performance are inadequate hardware, excessive network round trips, heavy customizations, and poor networking infrastructure.

• Scalability. A Siebel application's ability to continue to perform well as volumes increase.

  Scalability is generally measured in hardware terms—for example, maintaining acceptable performance after adding new processors on existing machines (vertical scalability) or new Siebel Server machines (horizontal scalability) to process an increased number of users.

  Some typical inhibitors of scalability are an inflexible application module structure and an inability to run parallel processes.

For further definitions of terminology related to performance and scalability, see Performance Tuning Terminology.