Performance prediction of component-based systems a survey from an engineering perspective

Performance predictions of component assemblies and the ability of obtaining system-level performance properties from these predictions are a crucial success factor when building trustworthy component-based systems. In order to achieve this goal, a collection of methods and tools to capture and analyze the performance of software systems has been developed. These methods and tools aim at helping software engineers by providing them with the capability to understand design trade-offs, optimize their design by identifying performance inhibitors, or predict a systems performance within a specified deployment environment. In this paper, we analyze the applicability of various performance prediction methods for the development of component-based systems and contrast their inherent strengths and weaknesses in different engineering problem scenarios. In so doing, we establish a basis to select an appropriate prediction method and to provide recommendations for future research activities, which could signiticantly improve the performance prediction of component-based systems