Basics of Performance Testing

Why there is a need of Performance or Load testing of an application:

Does the application response time is adequate as expected by the intended users?
How the application will handle the expected and unexpected user loads?
How the application will handle the expected and unexpected transactions required by the business?
To check the stability of application under heavy loads?

Difference between Functional Testing and Load Testing:

Functional testing - to check the functionality – To check the functionality of business processes
Load / Performance testing - to check Stability, Performance, Functionality under load. Examples:
- Will 1000 concurrent hits crash the server or application?
- Is response time is as per the specifications?

Rest of the article will continue after below advertisement:

Sponsored Links:

Performance Testing types:

Component Testing - To find the performance of each component / tier.
Load Testing - To find out whether the system can handle the expected load upon deployment in production environment.
Stress Testing - It is performed to find the breaking point of the application. It is a type of testing that measures whether the application’s environment is properly configured to handle expected or unexpected high transaction volumes.
Volume Testing - To check the stability of the system / application / server with under large amount of data over extended time periods.

Benefits / Objectives of Performance Testing:

To calculate the application Response Time.
To access the stability of the application.
To find out which configuration provides the best performance results.
Capacity Planning – to identify degradation point in performance.
Acceptance – To find out whether the system is acceptable under heavy volums, loads and stress
Bottleneck Identification – To identify the bottlenecks in the application
To identify best platform for the application.

Commonly used Load Testing Tools: