Beginner: First proof of concept next week. What are the top 3 things I should test?

Embarking on a first proof of concept for a cloud security platform like iboss is a critical step. A common mistake is to test generic throughput numbers without considering the specific operational patterns that will define your user experience and total cost of ownership. As someone who has conducted numerous benchmarks for web-filtering and secure web gateways, I advise focusing on three core dimensions that will yield actionable data for your decision-making process.

My top three recommended test areas, in order of operational priority, are:

1. **Latency Profile Under Realistic Concurrency**
Do not rely on a single-threaded test or an average latency figure. Your goal is to understand the latency distribution (p50, p95, p99) when simulating your expected user load. A platform can have a good average but suffer from severe tail-latency spikes that cripple user productivity.
* **Test Method:** Use a tool like `k6` or a custom script to simulate 50, 100, and 200 concurrent users, each making a series of HTTP/HTTPS requests to a mix of destinations (popular sites, SaaS apps, internal tools). Capture and analyze the full histogram of request times.
* **Critical Metric:** **p95/p99 Latency.** If your p99 latency exceeds 1500ms for common web requests, users will perceive the system as "slow," regardless of a 200ms average.

2. **SSL Inspection Performance & Cipher Suite Compatibility**
The performance cost of SSL/TLS decryption and re-encryption is the single largest factor in secure gateway overhead. You must test this explicitly.
* **Test Method:** Create two identical test runs. One with SSL inspection enabled for all traffic, and one with it disabled (or bypassed for specific sites). Measure the throughput (MB/s) and latency delta.
* **Critical Check:** Verify compatibility with modern cipher suites (e.g., TLS 1.3, ECDHE algorithms). Attempt to access a variety of sites, including those employing advanced certificate pinning or those using less common but valid certificates. Note any connection failures or client-side warnings that appear only when inspection is active.

3. **Policy Configuration Complexity & Its Impact on Throughput**
The real-world performance impact is not on a default policy but on the complex rule set you will inevitably deploy. A rule with 10,000 blocked categories and custom URL lists behaves differently than a simple "block malware" rule.
* **Test Method:** Implement a policy that mirrors your planned production rules. This should include:
* Multiple active user groups with different allow/deny rules.
* A mix of URL filtering, file type blocking, and application controls.
* DLP-like string matching rules (e.g., block documents containing "Confidential").
* **Critical Metric:** **Throughput Degradation.** Establish a baseline throughput with a simple policy. Then, deploy your complex policy and measure the sustained throughput drop. A degradation beyond 20-30% under load may indicate scaling concerns.

I strongly advise against treating these tests as isolated silos. The interplay is where you'll find genuine insights. For example, a complex policy may have a negligible effect on average latency but a catastrophic effect on p99 latency under concurrency when combined with SSL inspection.

Document every configuration parameter used in your test (instance sizes, geographic regions, DNS settings, any tuning flags). Reproducibility is the cornerstone of a valid PoC. I am particularly interested in the results of the SSL inspection test, as the architectural approach to this problem varies significantly between vendors and directly impacts both performance and security posture.