In your business application, you have a slow screen or function. Your team is pointing fingers between the application code, the database, and the hardware.
To make it go faster, here are your main options:

Check all of the options you’re willing to consider, and X out all of the options you’re NOT willing to consider.
The more boxes you X out, the more expensive the rest of the boxes become.
For example, on some projects with third party vendor software – say, SharePoint or Dynamics – managers give me requirements like this:

If those are my only options, I’m going to have to push those limits pretty hard, and I’m going to have to sink a lot of money into those options. I may have to step up to SQL Server Enterprise Edition and cache the entire database in RAM.
On the other hand, when I’m dealing with an in-house application with really agile developers, with the application hosted in Amazon Web Services, the grid looks more like this:

As you can probably guess, the tuning options are much more flexible here – not to mention cheaper.
So when you need to make your app go faster, tell your staff what options are on the table, and which ones are off.
3 Comments. Leave new
Common sense, but oh so brilliant. Thanks for sharing.
Stevo
Thanks Steve!
Always with the gold, Brent. Like so much of what you write; just what I needed, when I needed it. Thanks!