Dealing with performance requirements during the development of information systems

Performance goals for information systems are treated as a class of nonfunctional requirements (NFRs). A given model for representing NFRs is given to make provisions for: representing a variety of implementation alternatives; expressing performance goals (including responsiveness) in terms of performance and information system concepts; and organizing the process into layers corresponding to subsets of the language to be implemented. The application of the framework is illustrated by mapping the conceptual design of an information system to its implementation, while attempting to meet a set of goals such as 'achieve good time performance for authorizing credit card sales'. A tool is being developed to aid this process.<>