How Load Testing plays an important role in Software Testing

As more users as well as businesses get into the internet bandwagon, companies big or small have their task cut out. Companies can no longer remain contented by just being on the internet, for the challenge is to remain a step ahead of one's rivals. This calls for making the website robust in terms of performance, functionality, security, and user experience. The last one is extremely critical as any error message while working on the site can mean a bad user experience, which might lead to probable junking of the site for rival ones. A satisfied user on the other hand can mean more business for the company.

To illustrate the same by an example: If a critical number of users get on an ecommerce portal to carry out purchases concurrently, there might be chances that the portal suffers from latency or worse, downtime. Such an eventuality can have a severe impact on users (by corollary, on the company as well) for not only they will end up not making purchases but worse, might lose money (on a temporary basis though) if the portal hangs while they are in the process of entering the card details. Consequently, apart from subjecting the company to costly lawsuits this can damage the reputation of the company, its brand and can impact the overall ROI. So, what needs to be done to escape such a 'doomsday scenario'? The answer lies in using load testing services or taking the load testing approach.

What is a load testing approach?

This is a process in which an application is exposed to load pressures – normal and beyond. By using load testing methodology an application's response time to concurrent users commands, its capacity to handle load, and speed of processing commands can be tested. On the face of it, load testing services figure out glitches that can lead to the above mentioned issues. Thus, before the software is released into the market and users are allowed to handle the same, load testing services amongst others should be engaged to test its quality.

How load testing is done?

The load testing approach in most cases involves the use of cloud or virtualization. For example, if an application is anticipated to be used by 5000 users at a time, these many users should be generated virtually to test if the application behaves normally or otherwise. In other words, check if all the functions and links work seamlessly. In fact, automation is the key to load testing approach as manual testing will not be able to cope with its sheer scale. In fact, load testing services not only include subjecting a system to multiple concurrent users but deal with other processes as well such as getting a large number of files from the server, send multiple processing requests to the server or printer, or overwhelming the network with huge service requests.

Types of Performance testing

Load testing approach can be of three types:

Capacity testing: Also known as scalability testing this type of load testing methodology identifies and tests the maximum capacity of an application and its response time.

Stress testing: This is a type of load testing methodology wherein the system is subjected to extreme load conditions to test how it behaves.

Soak testing: In this type of load testing methodology the system's performance is checked for a longer duration.

Conclusion:

Carrying out load testing services is important to check an application or system's efficacy when the number of users is more.

Michael works for Cigniti Technologies, which is the world's first Independent Software Testing Company to be appraised at CMMI-SVC Level 5, and an ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2013 certified organization.