According to Mr. McKay: "For the document imaging system, we had done some preliminary work using spreadsheet-based calculations, but had no means of accurately forecasting what would happen to the response times and overall performance of the system as we extended the number of users and its use throughout the company.

Scottish Amicable discussed with Metron, who were in the early stages of developing a version of their Athene Performance Management software for client/server, the possibility of working with them as a test site to evaluate an early version of the software.

Mr McKay said: "From the beginning, working with Metron was of benefit to us, as it helped clarify our thoughts on the client/server environment and what we would need from any Capacity Planning/Performance Management system." Data was collected for a period of two weeks from the imaging system, analyzed and then submitted as a report by Metron to Mr. McKay’s team at Scottish Amicable. The model enabled attention to be focused on those elements of the architecture which contributed or would contribute) most to end-user response times, in this instance the sever I/O subsystems.

According to Mr. McKay: "The report was very useful and indicated very clearly the levels of resource we would require. Previously we had been very much in the dark and there is a temptation to throw more hardware at a problem, without really understanding whether this will solve it. In fact, without the use of Metron’s Athene software, we could have incurred significant expenditure. In addition, it is much more satisfactory to be able to go to management with specific analytical findings, rather than just a gut feeling."

Based on the results of the preliminary report, Scottish Amicable has been able to reconfigure the existing hardware components of the system and deliver a satisfactory level of service to their users, without purchasing significant additional equipment.