Performance testing framework: Evaluating the impact on the system speed

Abstract

The world we live in now is defined by the word “speed” and any device, technology, or system that doesn't keep up is rejected or replaced immediately. Because of this, one of the biggest concerns today is “optimization”. Its purpose is to reduce the impact on the user's device. The Anti-Virus industry is also confronting with this challenge. Although the first concern is to keep the user safe, providing a flawless protection, it is crucial to reduce the impact brought on the user's system, preventing him to disable or uninstall the AV solution and thus remaining unprotected. The increased number of malware types/families as well as their complexity generated the need for complicated detection methods, which means a constant evaluation is needed. Because of these reasons, our antimalware laboratory has developed a generic framework for measuring the impact that the AV solutions have on the system they are installed on. This system was designed to be easily configurable, managing the big number of changes that occur every day and fast so that every update released to the users can be tested. Also, this framework is used to test and develop new technologies that improve the performance of our AV product.