Why do we run through our process before we collect readings?

Running through the process before collecting readings is crucial for establishing a performance baseline. This allows developers and system analysts to understand the normal operation of the application and identify how it performs under expected conditions.

Establishing a performance baseline involves running the process in a controlled environment to gather relevant metrics, which provides a reference point for future analysis. This initial run enables you to capture how the application behaves in terms of response time, resource utilization, and transaction throughput, which is essential for any performance tuning and optimization efforts later on.

While the other options mention valid considerations, they do not specifically relate to the purpose of establishing a performance baseline. For instance, eliminating the effect of rules assembly is more relevant to ensuring that changes do not unintentionally impact performance but does not address the need for baseline measurements. Verifying that all UI rules are created pertains to application functionality rather than performance metrics. Opening external database connections is part of the operational readiness of the application but does not provide insights into performance efficiency. Therefore, establishing a performance baseline is the correct reason for running through the process initially.