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Speed – Determines whether the application responds quickly
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Scalability – Determines maximum user load the software application can handle.
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Stability – Determines if the application is stable under varying loads
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Load testing – checks the application’s ability to perform under anticipated user loads. The objective is to identify performance bottlenecks before the software application goes live.
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Stress testing – involves testing an application under extreme workloads to see how it handles high traffic or data processing .The objective is to identify breaking point of an application.
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Endurance testing – is done to make sure the software can handle the expected load over a long period of time.
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Spike testing – tests the software’s reaction to sudden large spikes in the load generated by users.
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Volume testing – Under Volume Testing large no. of. Data is populated in database and the overall software system’s behavior is monitored. The objective is to check software application’s performance under varying database volumes.
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Scalability testing – The objective of scalability testing is to determine the software application’s effectiveness in “scaling up” to support an increase in user load. It helps plan capacity addition to your software system.
Performance Testing Process
The methodology adopted for performance testing can vary widely but the objective for performance tests remain the same. It can help demonstrate that your software system meets certain pre-defined performance criteria. Or it can help compare performance of two software systems. It can also help identify parts of your software system which degrade its performance.
Below is a generic performance testing process
1. Identify your testing environment – Know your physical test environment, production environment and what testing tools are available. Understand details of the hardware, software and network configurations used during testing before you begin the testing process. It will help testers create more efficient tests. It will also help identify possible challenges that testers may encounter during the performance testing procedures.
2. Identify the performance acceptance criteria – This includes goals and constraints for throughput, response times and resource allocation. It is also necessary to identify project success criteria outside of these goals and constraints. Testers should be empowered to set performance criteria and goals because often the project specifications will not include a wide enough variety of performance benchmarks. Sometimes there may be none at all. When possible finding a similar application to compare to is a good way to set performance goals.
3. Plan & design performance tests – Determine how usage is likely to vary amongst end users and identify key scenarios to test for all possible use cases. It is necessary to simulate a variety of end users, plan performance test data and outline what metrics will be gathered.
4. Configuring the test environment – Prepare the testing environment before execution. Also, arrange tools and other resources.
5. Implement test design – Create the performance tests according to your test design.
6. Run the tests – Execute and monitor the tests.
7. Analyze, tune and retest – Consolidate, analyze and share test results. Then fine tune and test again to see if there is an improvement or decrease in performance. Since improvements generally grow smaller with each retest, stop when bottlenecking is caused by the CPU. Then you may have the consider option of increasing CPU power.