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Performance Management Engineering, PME
Information Technology Infrastructure Library dictates there is a simple structure that is followed in IT organizations. The structure allows each important role to be acknowledged simply by looking up the role of interest in Wikipedia. There are other institutions that are as highly regarded that readily compile this same information. The interesting question asked based on analyzing a disturbing trend in the IT sector what does an IT Performance Management Engineering, or Performance Architect Engineering, or a PME do? Reading through each or any description on the internet. Find a job posting and look at its job description and may still not be clear to the casual observer.

This role/designation/skill-set is not to be confused with the Performance Engineer whom maybe already involved in the Software Development Lifecycle re-factoring the application software automation scripting in hopes of resolving poor performance due to poor design or bad coding practices. Or a Performance Tester whom maybe asked to run a series of scenarios and hand-off the test results to an analysis team for review.

A PME, is a CSI Agent at times! One might ask what does a CSI Agent or Continual Service Improvement (CSI) Agent job description consist. Often times a Performance Management Engineering role is aligning and realigning IT services with the Systems Architect allowing change as the business needs decline and most often with software developed products increase. CSI needs to be treated just like any other service practice.[1] A Performance Management in Engineering typically gets involved with this initiative. With help the role is assisting the Systems Architecture Group carrying out special Production Fire-storms scenarios needing resolved ASAP. The careful coordination is juggling a a long list of Technology Stack integration points configured to be swapped out with higher performing technologies as the become tested and available for high endurance use.

The PME, is well versed in interacting with Hardware and Tool Vendors for example Apple Cloud, Azure Cloud (Microsoft), MicroServices (DXC), ORACLE Cloud Services to name the top few that one can look forward to working with as they are polite and provide open-source or already purchased products for the team to discover. This is a rapidly changing or hyper-dynamic environments as laptops and clunky PC are dumped for fastest computers on earth's surface in Cloud Computing Space. The ability to learn quickly what's s changing and getting the big-data needed to uphold the client's end of the business end or SLA is absolute must and needs to be performed for each vendor sometimes on a daily basis.

The specific initiative of Service Agreement Management or formally known activity Service Level Agreement Management is a concern due to the cost of supporting the vendor client relationship. Many times the Total Cost of Operation of a vendors products or services are compounded with maintenance agreements adding to a hefty price tag for organizations that consume IT resources as an integral business processes. Often times interacting with a vendor necessitates a purchase of software and hardware to run on. If a software product can exist on a server with other software applications Capacity Management should be addressed. These software applications have specific technology requirements declaring it a better fit on specific physical hardware devices. An example is some software products can only exist as a singleton, meaning only one can exist. Other times having multiple instances of the same software application allow for more traffic and more users requests fulfilled.

These two ongoing initiatives combined with their projects which then spur off other software development activities. The Business Analyst Department,[2] defines what the end user or the client wants and needs are. This transcription process is documented in typical business language, and that can mean vague or ambiguous words or explanations of concepts of how software should operate. Possibly the most important information generated from this client Business Analyst interview is what duration of use is this system planning on being used on a 24hour clock. Sounds easy enough, the performance engineer takes this list and transcribes it using scientific algorithmic approaches into Non Functional Requirements. This Non Functional Requirements list is used during a Performance Inspection.

In general, functional requirements define what a system is supposed to do whereas non-functional requirements define how a system is supposed to be. A performance engineer instinctively runs a set of tests to fulfill these conditions or often called scenarios. Comparing and contrasting of how the test results help the performance engineer offer optimization opportunities to increase the overall responsiveness of this complicated and very expensive Technology Stack.

If these Non Functional Requirements are fulfilled by the Production Systems on a High Availability Architecture it offers an organization to withstand projected traffic patterns or project what may happen during other more exaggerated number of users or transactions. A classic scenario is checking e-mail around 12 or 6pm on the internet. Seems a little slower by most users accounting what the user's observed download times were for completing that use case. A Performance Management Engineer takes this in account and optimizes the configurations of the integration point settings along with the known Key Performance Indicators and to attain level described in the Non Functional Requirements documentation. The Availability Management initiative is a success when all parts of the system work as it was designed to do and behaves the way it was discovered to in the Production Environment.

Luckily there are Enterprise software products that can be used to help organize these initiatives that spur Software Development Projects that employ consultants that allow a company to thrive, grow. The prediction what of how the system may react during an unusual traffic patterns and future growth patterns are business opportunity scenarios for the technology vendors or the companies they employ consultants dispatched to the client sites to support them.

The PME is a CIA Agent, Collection Information Administration Agent. Typically involves collection of Architectural Design Diagrams that may describe how a hardware and software components layout and their transaction pathways. Selects an automation emulation tool that can quickly and with a little of maintenance as possible emulate the business transactions with a high number of Virtual Users on the Test Environment. Conducts an analysis of the Performance Inspection Test Results, and overlays the Key Performance Indicators to validate if the system can handle the expected amount of traffic and there is an acceptable performance. Administers aligning human resources with computer processes and monitors, and generates lots of data and information about the SUT, System Under Test. Organizing all the streams of information input, plotting the overlay of the Transaction Response Times, TPS against the Key Performance Indicator Monitoring reports. Creating a graphical display of these conditions by using tools or one can simply EXCEL "fx" options.

The demonstration of the fulfillment of the Non Functional Requirements list using an algorithmic template type format is known as a NFX Report if acronym-ified.

A PME is always known as an IT Firefighter, the very every day activities create its share of problems with a little practice can be solved quickly with little as possible downtime of the SUT, Systems Under Test. The Problem Management skill-set is learned, within the problem management domain, the performance engineering practices are focused on resolving the root cause of performance related problems. These typically involve system tuning, changing operating system or device parameters or software configuration settings.

The ability to proactively manage Continual Service Improvement projects, Capacity Management projects, and Availability Management projects successfully is the "crux" of the matter or the "ethos" of this consulting position. A well versed PME tool box consists of multiple tools that accomplish the same business need. Tool Vendors come and go. Tool versions go out of service, and end of life dictates that there is a continual zest for accumulating knowledge on the newest versions of these tool-sets and their platforms to remain competitive in the Performance Tool Sector Market.

Understanding this condition exists for organizations, and the demand in the IT sector job market has a new role for an enthusiastic, energetic, overachieving Performance Engineer with Architecture skills is typically the only Agent available to reduce the Total Cost of Operation, TCO.