There are two aspects to measuring and evaluating the performance of an application composed of one or more web services. The first is the throughput of the web service itself its ability to accept a request and provide a response in accordance with required performance parameters. On a larger scale, it's also the ability to actually have a transaction throughput that the component was designed to meet. We know that as scalability, although it's difficult to test true scalability prior to integrating all application components and functionality.

The second aspect is the ability to evaluate the performance of the application in the aggregate, including the web service. This includes the ability of the web service to respond, and how that response is coordinated with the responsiveness of the application as a whole. While the focus may be specifically on the performance of the web service component, it must be analyzed within the context of the entire application.