What factors determine application performance under high load?

Application performance under high load depends on several key factors:

• Application architecture: how efficiently algorithms are implemented, use of asynchronous operations, proper task separation.
• Resource utilization: optimal consumption of CPU, memory, disk, and network.
• Scalability: the ability to scale components horizontally and vertically.
• Load balancing: distributing requests among servers or containers.
• Caching: using caches to reduce database load and speed up responses.
• Database optimization: indexes, queries, normalization/denormalization of data.
• Network latency: minimizing network response time and optimizing protocols.
• Monitoring and logging: timely detection of bottlenecks and issues.

For example, if an application slows down under high load due to frequent database access, caching frequently requested data can reduce load and improve performance.