The key steps involved in performance testing

Posted by Ruby Gracy on January 5th, 2021

Performance testing is employed to measure the responsiveness, speed, and stability of the network, computer, device, and software program under a specific workload. Every business enterprise should conduct a performance test for identifying different bottlenecks related to performance.

Without performance testing, there are risks that inconsistent experience between the OS and users, slow response times, might lead to a poor user experience. As the developed product accomplished different stability needs, responsiveness, and speed, it will be able to work under the load, thereby assuring an improved and positive user experience.

Performance testing is inclusive of quantitative tests, which are performed under specific scenarios and in the lab. It is necessary to recognize and test different performance needs. Few of the typical parameters are inclusive of data transfer rates, processing speed, reliability, and workload efficiency, throughput, and network bandwidth.

For instance, the business enterprise has the capability to measure the program's response time as a specific person puts a request for action. In case the response time is slow, it might annoy the potential audience. So, the testing team needs to find the source of the bottleneck.

Steps in performance testing

If you are wondering how performance testing is done, you should make sure to follow the below-mentioned steps:

Also referred to as the test bed, the test environment is where the networks, hardware, and software are set for the execution of different performance tests. If software development is planning to make the proper use of the test environment for the purpose of performance testing, they should make sure to follow the below-mentioned steps:

Recognizing the testing environment

After recognizing different network configurations, software, and hardware, the software testing team will be successful in designing the test. It also offers a helping hand in identifying different challenges, which the team encounters while performing performance testing.

The options included in the performance testing environment are the subset of the production system and fewer lower specification servers. It also contributes to being a production system subset, along with fewer same specification servers. Besides this, the performance testing environment is also inclusive of the existing production system and the production system's replica.

Identification of different performance metrics

Apart from recognizing different metrics like throughput, response time, and constraints, it is essential to find the specific criteria, which are useful in performing performance testing successfully.

Designing and planning performance tests

This specific step is accomplished to identify different test scenarios that take the test data, user variability and different target metrics into consideration. It results in the creation of dual models.

Configuration of the software testing environment

During this step, you need to take the steps for the preparation of different elements to prepare the software testing environment. It also includes preparing different instruments that are required for monitoring different resources.

Implementation of software testing design

It is another crucial step in performance testing in which the tests are developed.

Execution of different tests

Apart from performing different performance tests, it is necessary to capture and monitor the generated data.

Analyzing, reporting, and retesting

For the success of performance testing, you need to analyze different data, after which you should make sure to share various findings. Now, you should make sure to run the various performance tests time and again with the aid of the various and similar types of parameters.

Kinds of performance testing

There are primarily two different kinds of performance testing techniques, which are referred to as stress testing and load testing. Apart from this, other kinds of software testing techniques play an integral role in determining performance.

• For instance, load testing is useful to the software developers in gaining an understanding of the system behavior during a particular load value.
• In stress testing, a system is placed under a specific traffic load, which is higher than expected traffic loads. So, the software developers will be capable of viewing how the particular system is functioning above the expected capacity limits.
• Also referred to as endurance testing, soak testing is responsible for the simulation of the steady rise of the potential audience over the due course of time for testing different systems and assuring long-term sustainability.
• Spike testing contributes to being another sub-part of stress testing, which assesses system performance under a significant and sudden rise of different simulated potential users.
• On the other hand, scalability testing is useful in measuring the performance, based on the capabilities of the software in scaling up and down different performance measure attributes.
• Capacity testing is responsible for testing different traffic loads, which are based on different users, and differing in the amount.

Performance testing in the cloud

You will be amazed to know that it is possible to conduct performance testing on the cloud as well. Cloud performance testing provides the suitable choice to conduct testing on different applications on a wide scale. It plays an integral role in maintaining different cost benefits.

Performance testing tools

According to different preferences and requirements, a wide array of performance testing tools is available in the market. Few of the tools which are useful for performance testing for mobile are inclusive of LoadRunner, JMeter, NeoLoad. LoadRunner contributes to being a popular performance testing tool that effectively measures and tests the application performance under a specific load.

It is also responsible for simulating a wide array of potential customers and analyzing and recording different load tests. JMeter is another efficient performance testing tool which is useful in generating different load tests on different application and web services. NeoLoad is another performance testing technique that helps in conducting different stress and load tests for various mobile and web applications.

With a revolution in the digital ecosystem, it is a common scenario that websites are crashing, resulting in several performance issues. Conducting performance testing is a common solution to get rid of this problem. Hence, performance testing has become the need of the hour for every business organization, offering Performance testing services.