When a client asks if an application is ready to go live, then a number of questions arise. Some of these questions are why is our system performance poor? Does our system comply with the business’ performance requirements? What will happen if our business grows and there is an unexpected load? All of these questions can be answered after performance testing has been done.

Components Of Performance Testing

Performance testing tests the following:

• Load, stress, performance, capacity, volume, non-functional components
  • Appraise the end user experience in realistic scenarios
  • Assess machine and infrastructure capability
  • Tests that non-functional business requirements are met

• Simulation of real load scenarios run against your application or websites
  • Concurrent users are tested
  • A mix of relevant transactions are tested
  • Ramp up strategies are tested, which is the speed at which new users are added to the system during a test
  • Accurately and correctly generated load is tested

If you follow these steps, you will have a realistic load which will give you a good indication of the response time that the application will deliver. It will also give you the transaction rate that the application can deal with at its peak.

Performance Testing Tools

There is a whole range of tools that can be used for performance testing, ranging from the following:

• Tools that are geared towards the commercial spectrum and technical spectrum,
• Expensive tools through to open source options, and
• Tools that are very complex or oversimplified.

Performance testing can also be done through a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) approach, which is suitable for public sites and simple transactions only. Examples of tools commonly used are NeoLoad, LoadRunner and JMeter.

Performance Testing Manages Risk

Performance testing is all about risk. Software test strategies that do not include performance testing are exposed to risks because a poor performance application can cost a business a lot of money and a bad reputation in the market. Even if you have a high-performance application but you didn’t do a performance test, you still do not know much about the performance of your application. Performance testing has to be realistic and done properly in order to gain the insights that the business needs to launch their product.

Need software testers who can do a comprehensive and thorough test on all your applications and software? Then contact Inspired Testing today.