Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a systematic process of comparing the performance of software, hardware, or systems against established standards or competitors to identify areas for improvement. It involves measuring metrics such as speed, memory usage, throughput, or latency under controlled conditions. This methodology is crucial for optimizing performance, ensuring reliability, and making informed decisions in development and deployment.
Developers should use benchmarking when optimizing code, selecting technologies, or validating performance requirements, such as in high-traffic web applications, real-time systems, or resource-constrained environments. It helps identify bottlenecks, justify architectural choices, and meet service-level agreements (SLAs) by providing empirical data. Learning benchmarking is essential for roles focused on performance engineering, DevOps, or any project where efficiency impacts user experience or costs.