All You Need to Know About Performance Testing

In software quality assurance, Performance Testing in general is a testing practice performed to determine how a system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a particular workload. A software application’s performance such as reliability, response time, scalability and resource usage matter a lot along with its functionality and features.

The main aim of Performance testing is to set a standard or benchmark for behavior of the system. Performance testing is not about executing the test cases, but it is about checking the overall performance of the system in terms of speed, reliability, resource usage and stability.

Performance testing is equivalent to Non-functional testing as it helps in ensuring the response time aligns with the desired time, in order to evaluate performance of software. Performance testing can also be carried out as a part of integration testing as well.

Types of Performance Testing

1. Load Testing: It is performed to ensure that the system can handle workload efficiently. It is a subset of performance testing. Load testing is also known as Volume Testing which mainly focuses on databases and Endurance Testing which checks the system by keeping it under certain load for a specific duration.

2. Stress Testing: It is carried out by overloading the resources as a result of which the system breaks down and its capability of recovery could be noted. Negative Testing is also a part of stress testing it includes removal of components from the system. The exact behavior of the system is evaluated as it checks the system under extreme load conditions by performing stress testing.

3. Spike Testing: This test is performed to evaluate the behavior of the system when the load is suddenly increased.

4. Scalability Testing: Its main objective is to check the maximum capacity of the system.

Need of Performance Testing

Performance Testing is done to provide information about the performance of the application with respect to speed, reliability, scalability and stability. Before launching an application into the market, performance testing is carried out so that issues such as system breakdown and system running slow due to multiple users and poor usability can be determined before the launch.

If an application with poor performance is launched, it will create negative impact on the users while failing to meet the client’s expectations.

According to Dunn & Bradstreet, 59% of Fortune 500 companies experience an estimated 1.6 hours of downtime every week. Considering the average Fortune 500 company with a minimum of 10,000 employees pays $56 per hour, the labor part of downtime costs for such an organization would be $896,000 weekly, translating into more than $46 million per year.

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Process of Performance Testing

Performance Testing plays a crucial role in software quality assurance. Here is the process for performance testing:

1. Developing Right Testing Environment

It is vital to know about the environment in which testing is to be performed. Understanding hardware, network configuration and software before starting the test is important as it provides the entire consensus of the system breakdown. It also identifies the challenges faced by the testers during the testing.

2. Identifying the Performance Acceptance Criteria

To identify performance of the system one should set certain criteria including the number of users using the system simultaneously and the response time of the system. This will ultimately help us measure the throughput and resource utilization.

3. Planning and Designing Performance Testing

In this phase, how the usage differs from user to user is defined with the scenarios to test the defined test cases. It will also test the system handling number of accounts simultaneously and a number of page loads per minute.

4. Setting up the Environment

The company arranges the tools required for testing and configures them. Hereby testing the environment, the system should be able to test its own performance to determine whether it meets the required expectations or not.

5. Implementing Test Design

It executes the pilot performance of the test cases to test the memory and network utilization also gauges CPU.

6. Running the Test

This is the final step. While running the test, this step assists in monitoring the overall performance of the system of handling load under extreme situations. In addition, it also helps determine whether the system can work efficiently after adding some extra load to it.

7. Analyze, Tune, and Retest

Test results are to be examined before and after the testing. If the platform experiences any problem such as gauging the CPU then it stops testing during the test, it is important to solve the issue before repeating the step. Once it is completed, analyze the result and share it with the staff.

Performance Testing is one of the most important components of software Quality Assurance. It is essential to check the performance of any software before bringing it to the market.

Performance testing ensures that the product meets the client’s expectations. Bringing a product which is efficient and user-friendly can increase the demand for the product and in return help the company gain success with higher credibility.

TestingWhiz can help you understand performance testing thoroughly and can also help you deliver an efficient product. To know more about Performance Testing contact experts of TestingWhiz, email us at info@testing-whiz.com or call us on +1-855-699-6600.