Guideline 4 - Plan for Growth

Restriction: This topic applies only when a Database Connectors license has been installed via the Micro Focus License Management System.
Planning ahead for growth is essential. You need to be able to predict the system resources that your application requires reaching a full load, both in terms of users and database size.

Before you choose and install hardware, it is best to run a simulation. Your hardware vendor or RDBMS vendor can help you to simulate a large number of users on a given platform with a given RDBMS.

Setting up and running a simulation that includes your own application lets you anticipate when moving into any installation, and can help to mitigate costly consequences.

A potentially costly mistake is to test in your office with a small database and a small number of users. Databases respond differently to small amounts of data and a small number of users than they do to large amounts of data and a large number of users. Functionally, the database works differently as the load increases. You might think of this adjustment as switching into a different gear. Significant changes in the load on your database can lead to large increases in overhead. The behaviors and loads encountered as the database expands cannot be determined from a linear projection based on the smaller scenario.