Performance Testing Challenges And Their Solutions

 

Software development always needs robust software testing to free impeccable and safe applications. It involves testing the developed software and making sure it works according to the requirements and is infallible for the end users. Software tests are classified into two main types: non-functional and functional tests.

Functional tests include integration, unit, sanity, system, interface, smoke, acceptance, regression and more. Common types of non-functional tests are resistance, reliability, recovery, location, performance, safety and more.

Of these, performance tests are one of the most crucial processes. Ensures software stability under various load conditions.

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What is the performance test?

Also known as the load test, performance tests include processes through which applications are analyzed to evaluate their performance from the system. The system is significantly tested under various network and load conditions to verify the time made by the application to respond in different loads.

Performance tests are carried out to ensure that the performance of a request is not affected by various factors, including the availability of bandwidth, network fluctuations, load traffic and more. In short, it identifies the speed of the system along with identification issues, including latency, speed, performance, response time, bandwidth problems, load balance and more.

Multiple types of performance tests are used, including load tests, resistance tests, stress testing, volume tests, tip tests, scalability tests and more. These methods help determine the responsiveness capacity and speed of the application, the website or the network.

Why are performance tests essential for proof of business web sites and mobile applications?

Performance tests are performed to calculate speed, reliability, scalability and stability of application in multiple load conditions. To deliver impeccable performance, each application must be stable and capable of providing consistent results at any time.

This becomes, even more, business critic with banking and commercial e-commerce applications that receive a large number of floors on a regular basis. Any failure or performance problem can abolish the reputation of the business brand.

Therefore, it is crucial that applications work efficiently under the stress of a large number of users to guarantee the continuity of the business. This is the reason why performance tests are one of the crucial parties of the software development life cycle (SDLC).

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Overview of the performance test process:

Here are some key steps that run in a performance test cycle: 

• ·        Analysis of the existing environment.
• ·         Collect system performance features.
• ·         Define the load distribution and the use model.
• ·         Performance acceptance criteria
• ·         Develop test plans, test assets, test scripts and scenarios
• ·         Configuration of the load generation environment.
• ·         Testing execution.
• ·         Monitoring of application servers, web servers, performance counters of the database server
• ·         Analyze and correlate the results.
• ·         Generate detailed reports.
• ·         Give performance improvement recommendations.
• ·         Re-try if it is necessary

The QA team participates significantly in the performance tests, at the same time that follows all the steps required to achieve effective results. However, teams can face certain challenges in performance tests that could affect the results of performance tests.

Let's look at these performance test challenges (and some best practices too) and how to solve them and take advantage of them.

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1. Selection of incorrect performance test tools.

The proper selection of a performance test tool depends on multiple factors, including the stack of application technology, the communication protocol, the skill level of the performance testing engineer and the cost of the license among others.

The selection of the incorrect tool may result in the loss of test days.

2. Lack of strategy and adequate test coverage.

A lot of effort and time comes to design an effective and complete test strategy to identify and prioritize the risks of the project. The appropriate test strategy and coverage help identify the performance performance characteristics, the planning of appropriate tests, the simulation of the actual user's interaction, the API service tests and proof that all services are Working according to the expectation or not.

In the absence of adequate coverage and strategy, it may be uncomfortable to obtain effective performance test results.

Solution:

The performance testing team must invest time to understand and analyze the architecture of the application along with other performance factors, including the geography of use, load distribution, use model, resilience requirements, availability requirements , the stack of technology, the requirement of reliability and more.

A clearly complete strategy must be implemented to test all the performance metrics required to obtain effective results.

3. Time and budget restrictions.

To achieve effective results, load tests require budget and time. In the absence of adequate planning during the development stage, the allocation of resources for performance tests can be scarce. Leads to a greater dependence on unequal resources that can not understand all the scope of performance tests.

Solution:

It is crucial to plan thoroughly for the performance tests at the beginning of the project, including the required resources, the time frame and the appropriate budget.

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4. Lack of knowledge about the need for performance tests.

Many stakeholders do not understand the criticality of performance tests during SDLC. In several cases, the performance problems arise in the publication after software production that could block the application and bring desperate the brand.

Solution:

Product owners, stakeholders or test architects should plan thoroughly for performance tests and treat it as an integral part of the end-to-end test process. Applications must be tested to perform performance by exercising databases, web servers and third-party applications for effective performance.

5. Incorrect analysis of the results of the performance test.

A good amount of application and knowledge of the system is crucial to adequately analyze the results of the tests. Inadequate analysis can lead to performance failures.

Solution:

Performance analysis should be handled by experienced performance engineers who have a deep understanding of product work flows, architecture and test processes. Test engineers must be aware of the architecture of the application.

An experienced tester would be aware of the web architecture, the concepts of the operating system, the concepts of networks, the OSI model, the data structures, the performance concepts on the client side and the performance concepts on the server side. The performance expert would analyze the results of the test efficiently.

6. Challenges in carrying out performance testing in production environment.

The execution of load tests in a fully functional production environment can be a challenge. When performing the test in this situation, any change in the production environment can affect the user experience for users in real time.

Solution:

The close monitoring of trends in the production environment is crucial to identify irregularities. Therefore, it is advisable to plan performance tests in an environment similar to production instead of a real production environment.

In case the commercial requirements request that you run the performance tests in a real production environment, then you must perform the test during work hours with enough time for any corrective action in case of an accident.

In addition, developers often use cache data for tests that can not give a real world scenario. Therefore, it is advisable to take advantage of the data to obtain during production and use different data sets for multiple tests.

7. Test scenarios

Execution of performance tests Considering different scenarios is crucial to guarantee the reliable performance of the application in any situation.

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