Step 1 - Identify Objectives The purpose of this step is to identify and write the performance objectives of your application. The key question you should ask yourself is: “How should my application behave under load?” The main parameters we should consider are: Response time- The time that would take the application to display a certain output or perform a certain calculation. Example: the product catalog must be displayed in less than 3 seconds. Throughput– The rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. Example: the system must support 100 requests per second. Resource utilization- A frequently overlooked aspect,