Performance testing is a method for testing software applications’ responsiveness, scalability, dependability, stability, and resource utilization under different workloads. Performance testing is mostly used to locate and fix software application performance issues. An application’s appearance and functionality on various browsers and devices can be affected by a code update from a team that is constantly integrating advanced functionality and bug fixes, and this can also have an effect on how quickly an application loads on various machines.
The basis of high-quality software is assessing an application’s performance and making sure users are experiencing appropriate load times and site speeds. This is why performance testing is so important to a well-rounded QA plan. Teams can evaluate activity using performance testing to forecast traffic trends. They may now better prepare for breakpoints and site failures in the future as a result.
Performance testing focuses on evaluating a software program’s:
- Speed: Determines how quickly the application responds
- Scalability: Establishes the software application’s maximum user load.
- Continuity and Reliability: Checks the stability of the application under different loads.
1. Purpose of performance testing
There are more issues to consider besides the features and functionality a software system can provide. Performance factors such as response time, dependability, resource utilization, and scalability of a software application are important. Performance bottlenecks must be removed rather than bugs must be found.
Performance testing is carried out to advise participants about the speed, reliability, and scalability of their application. Performance testing is more crucial because it reveals areas that need to be addressed before the product is released. Without performance testing, software is more likely to experience problems including slow performance when many users are using it at once, incompatibilities between operating systems, and poor usability.
Performance testing will show whether their programme satisfies the demands for speed, scalability, and reliability under realistic workloads. Applications with inferior performance metrics as a result of inadequate or insufficient performance testing are likely to develop a negative reputation and fall short of planned sales targets.
2. Different Types of Performance Testing
Here are some of the different types of performance testing:
2.1 Load Testing
Evaluates the application’s performance under the load of anticipated users. Before the software programme goes online, the goal is to locate performance bottlenecks.
2.2 Stress Testing
It includes putting an application through a lot of stress testing to determine how it reacts to heavy traffic or data processing. The goal is to determine an application’s weak point.
2.3 Endurance Testing
Endurance testing is carried out to check that the software is capable of handling the anticipated load over an extended period of time.
2.4 Spike Testing
Spike testing examines how the software responds to unexpectedly high spikes in user-generated load.
2.5 Scalability Testing
The goal of scalability testing is to ascertain how well the software programme “scales up” to accommodate an increase in user load. Planning software system capacity expansion is made easier.
3. Typical Performance Issues
The majority of performance issues centre on speed, response time, load time, and inadequate scalability. One of the most crucial characteristics of an application is frequent speed. Applications that run slowly will discourage users. Performance testing is carried out to ensure that an app operates quickly enough to maintain a user’s interest. Look at the list of typical performance issues below and note how speed is a basic pattern in many of them:
3.1 Heavy Load Time
A program’s first startup time is typically referred to as the load time. Generally, you want to do this as often as possible. Load time should be minimized to a few seconds or less if possible, while some apps cannot be made to load in under a minute.
3.2 Poor Response Time
The duration between a user’s data input and the application’s production of a response to that input is known as response time. This ought to happen quite quickly in general. Once more, users lose interest if they have to wait too long.
3.3 Inadequate scalability
When a software product cannot support the anticipated number of users or does not support a sufficiently wide range of users, it exhibits inadequate scalability. It is important to perform load testing to make sure the application can support the expected amount of users.
3.4 Bottlenecking
Bottlenecks are obstacles in a system that lower system performance as a whole. Bottlenecking occurs when a reduction in throughput occurs under specific conditions due to hardware problems or coding faults. One flawed section of code frequently results in bottlenecking. Finding the problematic area of code and making any necessary adjustments there is the key to solving a bottlenecking problem. In most cases, bottlenecking may be eliminated by either improving poorly performing processes or adding more hardware. Some common performance bottlenecks are :
- CPU utilisation
- Memory utilisation
- Network utilisation
- Operating System limitations
- Disk usage
4. Process of Performance Testing
Although the approach used for performance testing can vary greatly, the goal always remains the same. It can assist in proving that your software system satisfies specific performance requirements. It may also be used to compare the effectiveness of two software systems. Additionally, it can assist in locating software system components that negatively impact performance.
A standard process for conducting performance testing is provided below.
4.1 Choose a suitable testing environment
Understand your production environment, physical test environment, and testing technologies that are available. Before you start the testing process, have a thorough understanding of the hardware, software, and network settings that will be used. As a result, testers’ tests will be more effective. It will also assist in identifying potential difficulties that testers might run into when doing performance testing processes.
4.2 Determine the performance acceptance requirements
Goals and restrictions for throughput, response times, and resource allocation are included. Beyond these objectives and restrictions, project success criteria must also be determined. As a result of the fact that project requirements frequently do not contain a sufficient range of performance benchmarks, testers should be given the authority to create performance criteria and goals. There might be none at all in some cases. Setting performance targets can be done by looking for a comparable application to measure against when it’s possible.
4.3 Design and plan performance testing
Identify the important scenarios to test for all potential use cases and determine how end users’ use is likely to vary. It is essential to model different types of end users, provide performance test data, and specify the metrics that will be collected.
4.4 Setting up the test environment
Prior to execution, set up the testing environment. Install and set up tools and other resources as well.
4.5 Implement a test plan
In accordance with your test concept, create the performance tests. Write performance test scripts and create a test plan for all the test scripts.
4.6 Execute the tests
Run and keep a close eye on the tests. Assertions should be included in performance tests. On the basis of assertion, we can analyzes the test results either pass or fail.
4.7 Evaluate and Retest
Compile, examine, and distribute test results. After that, make any necessary adjustments and run another test to determine if performance has improved or declined. Stop when CPU bottlenecking occurs because improvements often decline with each subsequent test. Then, you might want to think about increasing CPU power.
5. Performance Testing Tools
Following are the performance testing tools:
5.1 Apache JMeter
The go-to open source tool for load testing and performance monitoring is Apache JMeter. It is used for recording, constructing, monitoring, and debugging on many servers, networks, and applications as a solely Java-based programme. JMeter is more popular because of its user-friendly installation process, graphical user interface, multithreading framework, and visual output.
5.2 Gatling
Another open source tool for web application speed testing is Gatling, which is built using Scala, Akka, and Netty. With features that would have let you automate tests, record tests, alter scenarios, identify bottlenecks, and communicate results, it can be used to anticipate and identify issues.
5.3 Fiddler
An open-source proxy debugging tool called Fiddler is used to track web application traffic. It allows you to monitor the total page weight, identify bottlenecks, track traffic, and troubleshoot and is compatible with any browser, operating system, or platform.
5.4 Selenium
Although Selenium is not specifically designed for load testing, it provides a solid overview of how to use the well-liked open source tool to make it work. It is easy to perform almost all testing tasks with Selenium.
5.5 WebLoad
There are free and paid versions of WebLoad as well. Neoload-like 50 virtual users are available in the free version. Additionally, the statistics dashboard offers shared report templates, the load generation interface simulates heavy user loads on a local cloud, and it connects with additional open source applications like Selenium and Jenkins.
5.6 LoadComplete
LoadComplete is a desktop tool that is used to load and stress test websites without the need for advanced programming or automation skills. It includes record and playback capabilities, as well as visual programming, and enables you to create load from VMs, local computers, and the cloud for a thorough performance testing and monitoring strategy.
6. Examples of Performance Test Cases
Some of the examples of performance test cases are as given below:
- Validate the website responds in less than 4 seconds even when 1,000 users are using it at once.
- Check that the application’s response time falls within a reasonable range when the network link is sluggish.
- Review the application’s maximum user capacity to ensure that it is not exceeded.
- Analyse the database’s processing time when 500 records are being read and written at once.
- Examine the application and database server’s CPU and memory use when they are both under heavy stress.
- Verify the application’s response time under scenarios of light, average, moderate, and heavy load.
- Vague words like “acceptable range,” “high load,” etc. are substituted with specific figures when the performance test is actually executed. Based on business requirements and the technical environment, performance engineers set these numbers.
7. Best Practices of Performance Testing
Testing often and early is maybe the most crucial performance testing advice. Developers cannot learn what they need to know from a single test. A series of smaller, more frequent tests is the key to effective performance testing:
- As soon as development is possible, test. Performance testing shouldn’t be delayed or hurried as the project comes to an end.
- Performance testing applies to ongoing projects as well.
- Testing individual modules or units has importance.
- Applications may involve a number of systems, including servers, databases, and services. Both individually and collectively test the individual units.
- To verify consistency in the results and establish metrics averages, do numerous performance tests.
Performance testing will be more successful if you adhere to a number of best practices, in addition to repeating tests:
- Develop a performance testing environment with the help of developers, IT, and testers.
- Always keep in mind that the software being tested for performance will be used by actual people. Analyze the effects on users as well as the test environment servers.
- Go beyond the limits of performance testing. Create a model by designing a test environment that considers as much user action as is practical.
- Basic measurements provide us a place to start when evaluating success or failure.
- It is important to run performance testing in test settings that are as similar to the live systems as possible.
- Separate the environment used for quality assurance testing from the performance test environment.
7. Conclusion
Any software product must first undergo performance testing before being marketed. It guarantees consumer pleasure and safeguards an investor’s investment from defective products. Performance testing expenses are typically more than offset by increased customer loyalty, satisfaction, and retention.
Make sure your QA team has a plan in place while keeping in mind the significant risk of not monitoring, load testing, or stress testing your product. Without compromising scalability or client loyalty, you may get ready for real-world circumstances by analyzing user behaviors and workflows.
TestDel aids software developers in making proactive improvements. TestDel assists developers in locating system bottlenecks and continuously monitors the programme while it is running in a production environment. In this manner, you can make adjustments while continuously monitoring how the system functions.