The process of and the lessons learned from performance tuning of a product family software architecture for mobile phones

Performance is an important nonfunctional quality attribute of a software system but not always is considered when a software is designed. Furthermore, software evolves and changes can negatively affect the performance. New requirements could introduce performance problems and the need for a different architecture design. Even if the architecture has been designed to be easy to extend and flexible enough to be modified to perform its function, a software component designed to be too general and flexible can slower the execution of the application. Performance tuning is a way to assess the characteristics of an existing software and highlight design flaws or inefficiencies. Periodical performance tuning inspections and architecture assessments can help to discover potential bottlenecks before it is too late especially when changes and requirements are added to the architecture design. In this paper a performance tuning experience of one Nokia product family architecture will be described. Assessing a product family architecture means also taking into account the performance of the entire line of products and optimizations must include or at least not penalize its members.