Introduction to Performance and Load Testing

Whether a system is to be used internally by your work force or externally by your customers, it’s stability and performance directly correlates with your success.

Research shows a clear relationship between website load speed and response times with customer conversions. The faster a page loads the more likely customers will be to do business on your site. Conversely, customers are less likely to buy your products and engage with your brand, the slower your website responds to their actions. Obviously, for internal applications, your workforce will be more productive and effective if the tools they use in their day to day activity are responsive and quick.

Overview of Performance Testing Objectives and Scope

I hope you find this Performance Test Plan template helpful. Please use it wisely. You see, I have mixed feelings about template test plans – performance or otherwise.

Monitoring and Identifying Performance Bottlenecks

Lack of Appetite to Test
The most debilitating and possibly biggest challenge I face when it comes to load testing is the lack of appetite to load and performance test from the senior project stakeholders.

Defining Clear Objectives and Goals for Load Testing

A question I get asked a lot is ‘What are the entry criteria for load testing?’ Before I go on, I’d like to clarify what I mean by load testing. Sometimes I see the term confused with; interchanged with or lumped in with performance testing orperformance testing tool. When I refer to types of performance testing, I mean end to end response time, including rendering, of a single user. By load testing and stress testing I mean, how does the system including network, servers, machines and database cope when multiple users are using it at the same time?