A company plans to replace a fifteen-year-old database platform. Before selecting a product, the project lead wants a structured comparison of what the current system does today against what the business now requires, so missing capabilities can be listed. Which requirements-gathering activity is this?

Gap analysis compares the current state of a system with the required future state and records the differences: missing features, unmet performance or availability targets, compliance shortfalls and integration needs. In database planning it is an early requirements-gathering step, because the identified gaps become selection criteria for the replacement platform and feed scope, budget and migration planning. Resource projection is a different requirements activity that forecasts future capacity, such as storage, CPU, memory and IOPS, from current usage and growth trends; it sizes the new system rather than cataloguing missing capabilities. Regression testing happens much later, after changes are built, and checks that existing behavior still works; it cannot run before a product is even chosen. Schema compatibility testing also belongs to the testing phase and confirms that applications work with a new or changed schema, which presupposes that a design already exists. Exam caveat: gap analysis and resource projection are often done together, so focus on the verb in the scenario, compare capabilities versus forecast capacity. Operational check: produce a gap register listing each requirement, the current capability, the gap and its priority, and have business owners sign it off before vendor evaluation starts.