Performance Testing — Web Apps

What is performance testing?

Type: Non-Functional testing

What is tested?: System’s behaviour under extreme conditions

Objective: 3 S’s — Speed, Scalability, Stability

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How it is done?

It is typically done with some variations on the load (no.of concurrent users hitting system under test). Each of them have a defined objective.

1. Load Testing: Check for bottlenecks under extreme case
2. Stress Testing: Evaluate the breaking point of the application
3. Endurance Testing: Test to handle the load for a longer duration
4. Spike Testing: Test to handle sudden increase in the load

Few other performance tests under data, scalability parameters are done as

1. Volume testing: System tested under varying data volumes
2. Scalability Testing: How application scales with increasing load

Typical metrics in performance testing:

• Response time
• Throughput
• Error rates
• Bandwidth
• Resource Utilisation: CPU, Memory

Performance Testing Procedure

1. Objective: It is important to define the business objectives (typically no.of concurrent users and resource limitations/budget)
2. Input: Heterogeneous user requests simulating realtime with data
3. Output: Performance parameters to be monitored and fixing acceptance
4. Configure testing: Capture and/or generated load generations scripts
5. Run: Use configured scripts and execute performance test
6. Record: Capture results from step 5
7. Tune System: Check the output and Fix required issues.
8. Repeat step 5 until output is acceptable

Common issues fixed in step 7

Most common items being fixed are

• Bottlenecks — Some blockage in data flow path
• Poor scalability — caused by concurrent tasks
• Software configuration issues
• Insufficient hardware resources

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