6x4 Methodology

BUSINESS FUNCTION (BF)
Is the entity used to represent a well defined business activity within the modeled enterprise solution. To achieve its well defined business deliverable, a Business Functions uses a number of Requests.

REQUEST (RQ)
Is an agent that goes around visiting Service Centers to obtain services on behalf of its Business Function. A Request, typically used by many Business Functions, has specific service demands that need be serviced by one or more Service Centers.

SERVICE CENTER (SC)
Is the location at which services are rendered to Requests. Our models use four types of Service Centers abstracting aspects of the underlying system architecture namely: processors (PRs), storage systems (SDs), networks (NTs), and pure delay centers (DLs). A Service Center services one or more Requests.

PARTICIPANT (PA)
Represents an enterprise entity accounting for the cost associated with rendering services to Requests. A Participant is associated with Requests and Service Centers.

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The 6x4 methodology is our simple and proven methodology that follows six steps. At the core of our methodology, is a process to represent complex enterprise solutions using performance models. These models are constructed with the help of clients’ stakeholders: business executives, subject matter experts, IT department, and performance experts. Once these models are checked and validated, they are used to predict performance of various solution's scenarios.

At P++, we strongly believe that enterprise performance should be addressed throughout the life cycle, not as an afterthought! Unfortunately, many irrecoverable performance issues could have been detected early on in the application life cycle. Our methodology is implemented through consulting services and the use of our modeling software, EPerfTool©. A fundamental aspect of our methodology is to develop a set of evolving models from the get go. These models mature throughout the life cycle. A typical consulting engagement starts by defining the “Performance Objectives”. Everything we do from this point on is to answer questions pertaining to those “Performance Objectives”.

To build, verify, and validate enterprise solution models, we work with clients’ SMEs and IT department taking advantage of monitoring/modeling tools already available on site. In addition, we use our EPerfTool© products to build and solve scenario models of the enterprise solution.

Our models cover four aspects of the enterprise solution: business architecture, system architecture (computing, storage systems, and networks), workload (transactions rate, transaction demands, transaction mix, and utilization of service centers by other enterprise solutions within the organization), and financials.

We abstract your enterprise solution into performance models using only four simple performance object types and their interrelationships namely: Business Functions, Requests, Service Centers, and Participants (cost centers). Each of these performance object types has its own set of features, characteristics, and performance metrics.

Once performance objects are defined, we build a performance base model and a number of scenario models for the enterprise solution. These models are solved to predict performance metrics: end-to-end response times, resource utilization, throughput, and generate a number of financial reports.