Performance is one of the key factors for a business to be successful. And, to make this assured, teams always make sure to do performance testing, load testing, and stress testing. Though load testing and stress testing fall under the performance testing, all three practices are given huge importance to ensure a business is successful by meeting the requirements of both end-users and stakeholders.
Thus, teams should have a clear understanding of these testing methods, so that it becomes easier for the teams in preferring the right test practice in different load situations.
What is Performance Testing?
Performance testing is a subset of Performance Engineering and a superset of load testing and stress testing. It is performed in order to validate how the system components function when they are under a workload.
In this method, the scalability, responsiveness, ability, and resource usage of the application are validated. Performance testing doesn’t help in identifying defects or bugs, but it helps in identifying and resolving the performance bottlenecks in the application.
When performance testing should be performed?
⦁ It should be performed to validate the performance of the website, or application or networks, servers, databases, etc.
⦁ For agile teams, performing testing should be a continuous testing process
⦁ For the teams following the traditional waterfall model, performance testing should be performed each time when a version is released
What is Load Testing?
Load testing is one of the performance testing types. It is performed by constantly increasing load until the app reaches its threshold limit. With this load testing method, testers can easily identify bugs related to memory leakage, buffer overflow, etc. And, this is performed to identify the highest limit of application components such as network, hardware, database, etc.
When load testing should be performed?
⦁ This load testing method is performed for validating how many users the application supports
⦁ Load testing helps in validating how the load behaves for sustaining in the application
⦁ Load testing is preferred to be a continuous process and due to this, it is often integrated with continuous integration tools such as Taurus, Jenkins, etc.
What is Stress Testing?
Stress testing is also a subset of performance testing that is used for testing the robustness and stability of a software application. The objective of this testing helps in validating how the application works under a heavy workload.
When stress testing should be performed?
⦁ Stress testing should be performed regularly to understand the endurance capabilities of the system
⦁ Stress testing is very important and it should be performed with priority especially when there are major events ahead such as Black Friday, Special Discount Sales, etc.
⦁ Stress testing is very essential to be prepared for unexpected traffic
Conclusion:
Performance testing is one of the very important non-functional testing methods that help in validating the speed, scalability, and responsiveness of the application during any workload. Load testing and Stress testing are subsets of performance testing; and these play a very crucial role in enhancing businesses.
The above-mentioned information is helpful in understanding the definitions and when performance testing, load testing, and stress testing should be performed.
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