Feb 03
Process of performing end to end test cases under anticipated production load is called Load Testing.
Objective here to determine the response of various time critical transactions and business processes and to ensure that they are with in documented expectations (or Service Level Agreements – SLAs). Load testing can also be done in the field to obtain a qualitative idea of how well a system functions in the “real world.”
Load testing is a part of a more general process known as performance testing. Examples of load testing include:
- Subjecting a server to a large amount of e-mail traffic.
- Downloading a series of large files from the Internet.
- Assigning many jobs to a printer in a queue.
- Running multiple applications on a computer or server simultaneously.
- Writing and reading data to and from a hard disk continuously.
Purpose of Load testing:
The purpose of any load test should be clearly understood and documented. A load test usually fits into one of the following categories:
- Quantification of risk- Determine, through formal testing, the likelihood that system performance will meet the formal stated performance expectations of stakeholders, such as response time requirements under given levels of load. This is a traditional Quality Assurance (QA) type test. Note that load testing does not mitigate risk directly, but through identification and quantification of risk, presents tuning opportunities and an impetus for remediation that will mitigate risk.
- Determination of minimum configuration- Determine, through formal testing, the minimum configuration that will allow the system to meet the formal stated performance expectations of stakeholders – so that extraneous hardware, software testing and the associated cost of ownership can be minimized. This is a Business Technology Optimization (BTO) type test.