How to find bottlenecks in an architecture
Run bottleneck detection against a modelled architecture under a stated workload, and confirm the finding with sensitivity analysis.
When this is useful
- A design has a component everyone suspects and nobody has evidence about.
- Volumes are about to increase and you want to know what gives way first.
- A review asks where the design's limit is.
Before you start
- A modelled architecture and a workload profile. Bottleneck detection is meaningless without a stated demand.
Step 1: State the workload
Set the workload profile to the load you care about — today's, or the one you are planning for.
Simulate ▸ Workload Profile
Step 2: Run bottleneck detection
Bottleneck Detection identifies where the modelled architecture strains under that demand.
Simulate ▸ Bottleneck DetectionSimulate ▸ Simulation Panel
Step 3: Confirm it is real, not an artefact of an assumption
Run Sensitivity Analysis over the same model. If the bottleneck moves when a single uncertain input changes, the finding is about that assumption rather than about the architecture — and that is worth knowing before anyone re-designs anything.
Simulate ▸ Sensitivity Analysis
Step 4: Test the fix in the model
Change the design and re-run. Comparing two runs is what the tool is genuinely good at, more so than any single absolute number it produces.
Simulate ▸ Recommendations
What happens next
A confirmed bottleneck is worth recording as a risk against the component, so it survives past the simulation session.
Example
Bottleneck detection pointed at a shared cache; sensitivity analysis showed the result held across the plausible range of request sizes, which turned a suspicion into a design change.
Tips
- Compare runs rather than trusting a single figure. The relative answer is far more reliable than the absolute one.
- A bottleneck that only appears at one set of assumptions is a finding about your assumptions.
Limitations
- This is a model-based estimate, not a measurement. It complements load testing rather than replacing it.