Software performance testing

Testing performance under a given workload In software quality assurance, performance testing is in general a testing practice performed to determine how a system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a particular workload. It can also serve to investigate, measure, validate or verify other quality attributes of the system, such as scalability, reliability and resource usage. Performance testing, a subset of performance engineering, is a computer science practice which strives to build performance standards into the implementation, design and architecture of a system. Testing types Tests examining the behavior under load are categorized into six basic types: Baseline test, load test, stress test, soak test, smoke test or isolation test. Additionally to these basic types, configuration testing and Internet testing can be done. Baseline testing Baseline testing is used to create a comparison point for other types of tests, e.g., for a stress test. By measuring how the system reacts in a "best case", for example only 5 parallel users, the other test types can be used to compare how the performance degrades in the worst case. Load testing Load testing is the simplest