Performance testing: This type of testing determines or validates the speed, scalability, and/or stability characteristics of the system or application under test. Performance is concerned with achieving response times, throughput, and resource-utilization levels that meet the performance objectives for the project or product. In this guide, performance testing represents the superset of all of the other subcategories of performance-related testing.
Load testing: This subcategory of performance testing is focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the system or application under test when subjected to workloads and load volumes anticipated during production operations.
Stress testing: This subcategory of performance testing is focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the system or application under test when subjected to conditions beyond those anticipated during production operations. Stress tests may also include tests focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the system or application under test when subjected to other stressful conditions, such as limited memory, insufficient disk space, or server failure. These tests are designed to determine under what conditions an application will fail, how it will fail, and what indicators can be monitored to warn of an impending failure.
Terminologies:
Baselines: Creating a baseline is the process of running a set of tests to capture performance metric data for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of subsequent performance-improving changes to the system or application. A critical aspect of a baseline is that all characteristics and configuration options except those specifically being varied for comparison must remain invariant. Once a part of the system that is not intentionally being varied for comparison to the baseline is changed, the baseline measurement is no longer a valid basis for comparison.
Benchmarking: enchmarking is the process of comparing your system’s performance against a baseline that you have created internally or against an industry standard endorsed by some other organization.
Capacity: The capacity of a system is the total workload it can handle without violating predetermined key performance acceptance criteria.
Capacity test : A capacity test complements load testing by determining your server’s ultimate failure point, whereas load testing monitors results at various levels of load and traffic patterns.
Component test: A component test is any performance test that targets an architectural component of the application. Commonly tested components include servers, databases, networks, firewalls, and storage devices.
Endurance test: An endurance test is a type of performance test focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the product under test when subjected to workload models and load volumes anticipated during production operations over an extended period of time. Endurance testing is a subset of load testing.
Performance: Performance refers to information regarding your application’s response times, throughput, and resource utilization levels.
Performance test: A performance test is a technical investigation done to determine or validate the speed, scalability, and/or stability characteristics of the product under test.
Performance goals: Performance goals are the criteria that your team wants to meet before product release, although these criteria may be negotiable under certain circumstances.
Performance objectives: Performance objectives are usually specified in terms of response times, throughput (transactions per second), and resource-utilization levels and typically focus on metrics that can be directly related to user satisfaction.
Performance targets:Performance targets are the desired values for the metrics identified for your project under a particular set of conditions, usually specified in terms of response time, throughput, and resource-utilization levels.
Performance testing objectives: Performance testing objectives refer to data collected through the performance-testing process that is anticipated to have value in determining or improving product quality.
Performance thresholds:Performance thresholds are the maximum acceptable values for the metrics identified for your project, usually specified in terms of response time, throughput (transactions per second), and resource-utilization levels.
Resource utilization: Resource utilization is the cost of the project in terms of system resources. The primary resources are processor, memory, disk I/O, and network I/O.
Saturation:Saturation refers to the point at which a resource has reached full utilization.
Scalability: calability refers to an application’s ability to handle additional workload, without adversely affecting performance, by adding resources such as processor, memory, and storage capacity.
Stability: In the context of performance testing, stability refers to the overall reliability, robustness, functional and data integrity, availability, and/or consistency of responsiveness for your system under a variety conditions.
Throughput: hroughput is the number of units of work that can be handled per unit of time; for instance, requests per second, calls per day, hits per second, reports per year, etc.
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