We all love perfection and work for things to make them better or near perfect. But how?

Quality assurance is an important part and it is required everywhere. For applications, QA becomes a lot more critical mandatory as countless people are going to use it. Within that, Performance Testing takes the center stage. The more you test, the more confidence you have before going live.

Performance testing! You might be aware of this phenomenal testing that aims at identifying and removing performance bottlenecks. This is done to test the application’s scalability, and performance.

But is that alone working? No, there are several tests included for flawless performance, heed for them.

A Deep Dive Into Performance Testing First

Load testing works in a normal and peak condition evaluating the performance. When users load with responses and requests, it is used to test the application. It should have that tolerance when it is loaded to the maximum. The database should be able to handle the crashes and slowdown with everything checked i.e., needed to be resolved regarding the network. 

Stress Testing is important to understand the system’s stability. You can get aware of the system’s maximum load capacity. This testing allows increasing the load with the stress level. Every application has already been tested for a specific load. Better to go for the testing before the system breaks down with max load, avoid any malfunctioning, recover the system from crashes. Stress testing also tells the weakest nodes where a system can break. 

Volume Testing ensures the performance of the application is not affected by how much data we are handling. This testing is executed with a larger amount of data. A heavy database is necessary for software testing due to the high amount of application usage, which increases the database size.  

Capacity Testing lets you be aware of the volume of business an application can handle. Going for this testing you need to consider the application limit of handling the future load, the surroundings capable of handling the increased load, and the additional resources it requires. Tests like this consider processor capacity, network bandwidth, memory usage, disk capacity, etc., and adjust them accordingly.

Why performance testing is Critical before each release

Experts believe application errors in mobile applications are far higher than what has been reported. A congested server makes mobile applications vulnerable to network problems. Several problems occur like broken images or problems downloading images, content feeds are full of giant black holes, Freezing and Stalling, and more.

1. Frustrated customers mean a loss to your business & lost revenue and unsatisfactory application is the main reason behind it. It is important to have a flawless application that does not cause pain in the nerve for the users. Performance testing can cover all the loopholes.
2. Performance testing lets you know the application speed in different regions. So, it is important to make an app i.e., updated country wise by passing it through various speed tests depending on the networks like 2G, 3G, 4G, and more.
3. In addition, a system may be able to run efficiently with only 1,000 concurrent users but may behave randomly once the user base reaches 10,000. Performance testing determines if the system performs well under high demand in terms of speed, scalability, and stability.
4. It is possible to test the above-mentioned criteria through different tools; however, it is also possible to determine whether the system is functioning according to the benchmark through different processes. Planning how performance testing will be performed is also crucial.

Understanding how performance testing is conducted

• To identify and gather client requirements – technical and business – the performance team interacts with the client and gathers details about the application’s architecture, the database used, intended users, functionality, application usage, hardware and software requirements, etc.
• Following the identification of key functionality, a POC (Proof of Concept) is created with the available tools, which is a limited version of the real-time activity.
• A test plan and design are developed based on information collected in previous phases, including the environment, workload, hardware, etc. in which the performance test will be run.
• For the functionality included in the test plan, use cases are created. Clients are informed of these use cases and asked to approve them. The purpose is to ensure that the correct steps are recorded in the script.
• Test execution is based on a Performance Load Model. During this step, the focus is on validating whether or not the given performance metrics have been achieved.
• The scenario has been designed according to the Load Model in Controller or Performance Center, but initial tests have not been executed with the maximum users in the Load Model.
• The performance tester’s most important deliverable is the test results. In this way, we can demonstrate how performance testing can provide ROI (Return on Investment) and productivity. It may be necessary to simplify the test results to make the conclusion clearer and avoid derivations.

In conclusion

Investment in Performance testing will be one of the smartest decisions you will make for your organization. It ensures the best speed, lesser bugs, time-saving processes, dynamic applications, and business growth. Performance testing with various tools assures the ability of the application to sustain itself in the market.

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Written by Infiwave Solutions