Performance Testing

WHAT GETS CHECKED MAJORLY IN PERFORMANCE TESTING

Following are the factors that are being majorly checked:

• SCALABILITY: It checks the user load that the application can handle.
• SPEED: It verifies whether the software is responding quickly or not.
• STABILITY: It confirms whether the software application stays under varying loads.

WHY IS PERFORMANCE TESTING REQUIRED

The central part covered through this testing is rectifying the performance issue. In addition to bugs that might be present in the software, it's essential to eliminate the performance issues that might lead to the bad quality of the software. When this testing is implemented, we can quickly identify the features of our application like its response time, speed, stability, and scalability and can provide this information to the customer as well. All the necessary improvements can be easily made before the product finally gets launched in the market. If the performance testing gets missed, the software will likely suffer many issues like slowness if many users use it simultaneously, poor usability, and inconsistency across various operating systems. To maintain a reputation in the market and ensure a good quality application, it's essential to do performance testing.

TYPES OF PERFORMANCE TESTING

Let’s read the types of performance testing:

• SCALABILITY TESTING: This testing makes sure that the application is well efficient and how it gets scaled up if there is an increase in user load.
• VOLUME TESTING: In this testing, massive data is stored in the database, and the application's performance is monitored. Its objective is to check how the application works under varying database volumes.
• SPIKE TESTING: This testing is done to check the application's behavior when there comes a spike in the number of users using the application.
• ENDURANCE TESTING: Through this testing, we can calculate an application's tolerance or endurance power, like for how long the application can stand the expected load.
• STRESS TESTING: One of the main objectives of this testing is to identify the breakpoint of the application
• LOAD TESTING: One of the main objectives of this testing is to identify the performance bottleneck before the application goes live.

SOME COMMON PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS

Following summaries some common performance problems:

• BOTTLENECKING: This is the factor that tells the obstructions of the system, which degrades the overall performance of the application. The expected performance bottlenecks are memory & CPU utilization, disk usage, operating system limitations, and network utilization.
• POOR SCALABILITY: It occurs when the application cannot handle subsequent users. 
• POOR RESPONSE TIME: This gets checked when the user gives input and the application provides the output. If it works well and in time, then response time is fine; otherwise, the user can lose interest in the application.
• LONG LOAD TIME: Load time is the time taken by the application. It should be as minimum as possible. Sometimes, the application takes a long time to get loaded, which indeed is a type of performance failure.

PROCESS OF PERFORMANCE TESTING

PROCESS OF PERFORMANCE TESTING

The above image depicts the generic process of doing performance testing. Let's read them out in detail:

• IDENTIFY THE TEST ENVIRONMENT: Understanding everything like the tools required, production environment and hardware, network, and software configurations before implementing the testing.
• DETERMINING THE PERFORMANCE ACCEPTANCE CRITERION: The performance acceptance criterion should be identified before so that the outputs obtained can be matched with the desired performance that’s been demonstrated before.
• PLANNING AND DESIGNING PERFORMANCE TESTS: It’s essential to stimulate the variety of end-users, plan performance test data and outline what metrics will be gathered through it.
• CONFIGURING THE TEST ENVIRONMENT: The necessary tools and resources should be gathered before implementing the tests. That’s how we should prepare the testing environment.
• IMPLEMENTING TEST DESIGN: This states creating the performance test according to your test design.
• RUN THE TEST: Here, we execute and monitor the tests.
• ANALYZING AND RETESTING: Analyzing the test results, fine-tune and test again to see the performance. We could see the improvements growing slowly with each retest, and that’s how bottlenecking could be eliminated.

PARAMETERS MONITORED DURING PERFORMANCE TESTING

Following are the parameters that are being monitored during performance testing:

• MEMORY USAGE: Memory usage here stands for the processor's time to execute the non-idle threads.
• COMMITTED MEMORY: Committed memory is the amount of virtual memory used.
• RESPONSE TIME: Response time is when the application responds to the user whenever any input is given.
• THROUGHPUT: Throughput is the rate at which the computer or network receives requests per second.
• GARBAGE COLLECTION: It means returning the unused memory to the system. For efficiency, it needs to be monitored.

FEW EXAMPLES OF PERFORMANCE TEST CASES

• To check the response time of the application under load 
• To check the maximum number of users that the application can handle before reaching its lowest point.
• Preventing the database execution when complete data is being entered into it simultaneously.
• Limiting the CPU and memory consumption of the application when the load conditions are at a peak.

PERFORMANCE TESTING TOOLS

There are lots of performance testing tools. A few of them are mentioned below.

• JMeter: This tool is used for load testing of the web and application servers.
• LoadRunner: It is a virtual user generator that stimulates the action of live human users.
• HP LoadRunner: It is one of the leading performance testing tools used to simulate thousands of users in real-time situations. Checking the response time under low, regular, moderate, and high load conditions.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF PERFORMANCE TESTING:

Let's check out some of the advantages and disadvantages of performance testing.

ADVANTAGES:

• It helps to validate the fundamental features of the software.
• It helps to measure the software's speed, accuracy, and stability.
• It helps in achieving user satisfaction as well.
• It helps to identify discrepancies and resolve the issues.
• It helps in improving optimization and load capability.

DISADVANTAGES:

• There might be an emergence of time and budget constraints.
• User simulations
• There arise variations in the utility of different tests.
• Few test cases need to be monitored individually, which becomes difficult to do.
   

Must Read Sanity Testing vs Smoke Testing

FAQs

1. What are the frequent performance problems that users face?
   Poor response time, poor scalability, long load time.
    
2. Name a few performance testing tools
   LoadView, LoadRunner, Web load, Neoload.
    
3. List a few bottlenecks of performance testing.
   CPU utilization, Memory utilization, Disk Usage. Network utilization.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

With the help of this blog, we can understand the basic concept of performance testing and everything related to it. It is one of the crucial tests; it certainly has utmost importance when facing interview questions. Currently, testing questions are majorly asked just to make sure whether the base over which the full development of the application is based is clear to you or not. You will understand the core concept of performance testing and will be able to face interview questions very quickly. Don't stop here. Try attempting the questions over this and gain confidence in yourself.

Do check out more testing blogs like Introduction to Web Testing, Black Box Testing, etc.