Software Performance - A Shape Not a Number

Explore the evolution of software performance measurement in this thought-provoking conference talk from Strange Loop. Delve into the argument for shifting from single-number performance metrics to unsampled histograms. Discover the three phases of application performance management evolution, from average request latency to high-percentile latency, and finally to detailed real-time latency histograms. Learn how latency histograms provide clearer visualizations of statistical modes in production systems and offer greater precision in explaining performance variances. Examine side-by-side examples of multi-modal histograms and traditional percentile time series statistics to understand the benefits of this approach. Gain insights into why traditional p99 latency metrics may fall short in today's complex microservice architectures, and understand the need for more sophisticated tools to identify, triage, and explain latency issues in modern software environments.