Scott Barber

Chief Technologist, President and CEO

Professional Summary:

Scott Barber is the Chief Technologist of PerfTestPlus, Executive Director of the Association for Software Testing Co-Founder of the Workshop on Performance and Reliability and co-author of the Microsoft patterns & practices book Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications. Scott thinks of himself as a tester and trainer of testers who has a passion for testing software system performance. In additional to performance testing, he is particularly well versed in developing customized testing methodologies, embedded systems testing, testing biometric identification and personal security systems, group facilitation and authoring instructional materials. Scott is an international keynote speaker and author of over 100 publications on software testing. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, American MENSA, the Context-Driven School of Software Testing and is a signatory to the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

Scott is active in his personal mission of improving the state of performance testing across the industry by collaborating with other industry authors, thought leaders and expert practitioners as well as volunteering his time to establish and grow related industry organizations. His tireless dedication to the advancement of software testing in general and specifically performance testing is often referred to as a hobby in addition to a job due to the enjoyment he gains from his efforts.

Publications:

Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability - Microsoft patterns & practices, Contributed content, reviewed & wrote forward
Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications - Microsoft patterns & practices, J.D. Meier, Scott Barber, Carlos Farre, Prashant Bansode
SearchSoftwareQuality.com
- “Peak Performance” – Monthly Column, February 2007 - Current
Software Test and Performance Magazine
- “Peak Performance” – Monthly Column, June 2005 - December 2006
- “Diagnosing Symptoms of Poor Performance” – July 2005
- “Performance Tuning: Detecting and Eliminating Bottlenecks” – May 2005
Better Software Magazine
- “Investigate Performance Early, Validate Performance Last” – Jan/Feb. 2006
- “High-Performance Testing” – May/June 2005
IBM Developerworks
- “User Community Modeling Language (UCML™) for Performance Test Workloads”
- “Beyond Performance Testing” – 14 part article series extending traditional performance testing
- “User Experience, not Metrics” – 13 part article series about commonly misunderstood performance testing topics
- “Automated Testing for Embedded Devices” – describes automated functional and performance testing of embedded devices

Presentations:

EuroSTAR Keynote - "Introducing the Captain of your Special Teams... The Performance Test Lead" (Slides|Paper), 2006
Google Tech Talk - "Visual Application Usage Modeling", 2006
BCS SIGiST – “Performance Testing for Managers”, 2005
Software Test and Performance Conference (multiple), 2004-5
3rd World Consortium on Software Quality by iSQI (multiple), 2005
Florida Institute of Technology – “Performance Testing Pitfalls”, 2005
Web Site Evolution by IEEE – “Creating Performance Models Without Empirical Data”, 2004
Software Test And Review (multiple), 2004-6
IBM/Rational User’s Conference (multiple), 2002-4
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – “Automated Testing of Embedded Devices”, 2004

Endorsements:

“Scott Barber is one of the very few real experts and practitioners in performance testing and analysis. He combines experience and passion for the problems of performance with a very scientific approach that takes into account complex, but critical, performance affecting variables that are conveniently ignored by most practitioners (making their performance results about as reliable as horoscopes). Scott’s body of work, publications, and presentations clearly demonstrate that he has done his homework, knows his stuff, and his results are going to give you uniquely clear and realistic insights and solutions for your performance needs.” – Alberto Savoia, Founder and CTO of Agitar (Former Executive of Google)
Scott combines technical knowledge, wisdom, high standards and good humor. I have full confidence in his services. – Cem Kaner, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of Software Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology and Director of Florida Tech's Center for Software Testing Education & Research, Senior Author of Bad Software, Testing Computer Software and Lessons Learned in Software Testing.

Honors, Affiliations and Certifications:

MCSE Certified on Windows NT 4.0, A+ Computer Maintenance and Repair Certified
Rational Certified Performance Testing Consultant, TeamTest Consultant, Rational Unified Process Consultant
Association for Software Testing, ACM, Context-Driven School of Software Testing, Agile Manifesto Signatory, IEEE, American MENSA