Performance Testing Types, Steps, Best Practices, and Metrics. Performance testing is a form of software testing that focuses on how a system running the system performs under a particular load. This is not about finding software bugs or defects. Performance testing measures according to benchmarks and standards. Performance testing should give developers the diagnostic information they need to eliminate bottlenecks. Types of performance testing for software. To understand how software will perform on users systems, there different types of performance tests that can be applied during software testing. This is non functional testing, which is designed to determine the readiness of a system. Functional testing focuses on individual functions of software. Image credit Minds. Mapped. Load testing. Load testing measures system performance as the workload increases. That workload could mean concurrent users or transactions. The system is monitored to measure response time and system staying power as workload increases. That workload falls within the parameters of normal working conditions. Stress testing. Unlike load testing, stress testing also known as fatigue testing is meant to measure system performance outside of the parameters of normal working conditions. The software is given more users or transactions that can be handled. The goal of stress testing is to measure the software stability. At what point does software fail, and how does the software recover from failure Spike testing. Spike testing is a type of stress testing that evaluates software performance when workloads are substantially increased quickly and repeatedly. The workload is beyond normal expectations for short amounts of time. Endurance testing. Endurance testing also known as soak testing is an evaluation of how software performs with a normal workload over an extended amount of time. Best Book On Software Metrics In SoftwareThe goal of endurance testing is to check for system problems such as memory leaks. A memory leak occurs when a system fails to release discarded memory. The memory leak can impair system performance or cause it to fail. Scalability testing. Scalability testing is used to determine if software is effectively handling increasing workloads. This can be determined by gradually adding to the user load or data volume while monitoring system performance. Also, the workload may stay at the same level while resources such as CPUs and memory are changed. Volume testing. Volume testing determines how efficiently software performs with a large, projected amounts of data. It is also known as flood testing because the test floods the system with data. Most Common Problems Observed in Performance Testing. During performance testing of software, developers are looking for performance symptoms and issues. Speed issues slow responses and long load times for example often are observed and addressed. A Metrics Model to Measure the Impact of an Agile Transformation in Large Software Development Organizations. Metrics 1. 3. 6 Getting started Note This version requires Eclipse 3. 1 To access the sourceforge project page click here. Whats new Updated to work with eclipse 3. 1. The Ultimate Guide to Performance Testing and Software Testing Testing Types, Performance Testing Steps, Best Practices, and More. Stackify August 30, 2017 Developer. But there are other performance problems that can be observed Bottlenecking This occurs when data flow is interrupted or halted because there is not enough capacity to handle the workload. Poor scalability If software cannot handle the desired number of concurrent tasks, results could be delayed, errors could increase, or other unexpected behavior could happen that affects Disk usage. CPU usage. Memory leaks. Operating system limitations. Poor network configuration. Software configuration issues Often settings are not set at a sufficient level to handle the workload. Insufficient hardware resources Performance testing may reveal physical memory constraints or low performing CPUs. Seven Performance Testing Steps. Image credit Gateway Test. Labs. Also known as the test bed, a testing environment is where software, hardware, and networks are set up to execute performance tests. To use a testing environment for performance testing, developers can use these seven steps 1. Identify the testing environment. Identify the hardware, software, network configurations and tools available allows the testing team design the test and identify performance testing challenges early. Performance testing environment options include Subset of production system with fewer servers of lower specification. Subset of production system with fewer servers of the same specification. Replica of productions system. Actual production system. Identify performance metrics. In addition to identifying metrics such as response time, throughput and constraints, identify what are the success criteria for performance testing. Plan and design performance tests. Identify performance test scenarios that take into account user variability, test data, and target metrics. This will create one or two models. Configure the test environment. Prepare the elements of the test environment and instruments needed to monitor resources. Implement your test design. Develop the tests. Execute tests. In addition to running the performance tests, monitor and capture the data generated. Analyze, report, retest. Analyze the data and share the findings. Run the performance tests again using the same parameters and different parameters. What Performance Testing Metrics are Measured. Metrics are needed to understand the quality and effectiveness of performance testing. Improvements cannot be made unless there are measurements. There are two definitions that need to be explained Measurements The data being collected such as the seconds it takes to respond to a request. Metrics A calculation that uses measurements to define the quality of results such as average response time total response timerequests. There are many ways to measure speed, scalability, and stability but each round of performance testing cannot be expected to use all of them. Among the metrics used in performance testing, the following often are used Response time. Total time to send a request and get a response. Wait time. Also known as average latency, this tells developers how long it takes to receive the first byte after a request is sent. Average load time. The average amount of time it takes to deliver every request is a major indicator of quality from a users perspective. Peak response time. This is the measurement of the longest amount of time it takes to fulfill a request. A peak response time that is significantly longer than average may indicate an anomaly that will create problems. Error rate This calculation is a percentage of requests resulting in errors compared to all requests. These errors usually occur when the load exceeds capacity. Concurrent users. This the most common measure of load how many active users at any point. Also known as load size. Requests per second. How many requests are handled. Transactions passedfailed. A measurement of the total numbers of successful or unsuccessful requests. Throughput. Measured by kilobytes per second, throughput shows the amount of bandwidth used during the test. CPU utilization. How much time the CPU needs to process requests. Memory utilization. How much memory is needed to process the request. Performance Testing Best Practices. Perhaps the most important tip for performance testing is testing early, test often. A single test will not tell developers all they need to know. Successful performance testing is a collection of repeated and smaller tests Test as early as possible in development. Do not wait and rush performance testing as the project winds down. Performance testing isnt just for completed projects. There is value in testing individual units or modules. Conduct multiple performance tests to ensure consistent findings and determine metrics averages. Applications often involve multiple systems such as databases, servers, and services. Test the individual units separately as well as together. Image credit Varun Kapaganty. In addition to repeated testing, performance testing will be more successful by following a series of performance testing best practices Involve developers, IT and testers in creating a performance testing environment. Remember real people will be using the software that is undergoing performance testing. Determine how the results will affect users not just test environment servers. Go beyond performance test parameters. Develop a model by planning a test environment that takes into account as much user activity as possible. Baseline measurements provide a starting point for determining success or failure. Performance tests are best conducted in test environments that are as close to the production systems as possible.
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