The Top 10 Mistakes in Performance Testing
The Top 10 Mistakes in Performance Testing
Today’s apps are rapidly evolving, and consumers expect lightning-fast performance. Most users will exit an app if it does not load within a few seconds, regardless of how attractive its design is. The only method to avoid being a part of this club is to do essential performance testing, which is often one of the last steps in the application development cycle but should be completed as quick as possible. Taking this into account , this post outlines the top ten frequent performance testing mistakes that contribute to poor performance testing quality, as well as how these issues may be resolved appropriately with Loadium.
Performance testing is a type of non-functional testing that assesses the speed, stability, and responsiveness of a system while it is under a certain load. The application or platform has the potential to grow quickly if performance testing is done correctly. Many firms, on the other hand, overlook the importance of performance testing and approach it as a last-minute activity before the application is launched. But, before we go any further, let’s clarify what Loadium is and how useful it is for performance testing.
Loadium: Load and Stress Testing on Real Browsers
Loadium is a web-based load testing tool that allows you to quickly performance test websites, web apps, web services, APIs, and multimedia streaming without having to know how to code. It’s among the few tools on the market that utilizes real browsers, allowing engineers to see and measure real performance from the perspective of the user. This testing platform allows you to perform load tests on many devices in various locations, providing you the most realistic test environment possible. Furthermore, using the Loadium Recorder, you can easily and accurately develop testing scripts in a short amount of time.
Secondly, let’s check out the list of the top 10 most typical performance testing mistakes made by software testers — and how you can prevent them using Loadium in advance.
The Top Ten Performance Testing Mistakes
1. Incorrect Think Times and Delays in Test Scripts
Using incorrect processing time and sequencing delays are the most frequent performance testing mistakes. Some people either forget to include them or set a timer that is too long for thinking. Many people bombard an application with thousands of requests in a second without pausing to think, and then complain why it takes so long to respond. It’s worth noting that in reality no user would ever request two pages in a single second. As a result, you must specify think time wisely by creating a realistic test scenario that mimics how an actual user would engage with your software. You can simply adapt your tests to accommodate for actual users and assure the most accurate results by using a product like Loadium, which contains the Loadium Recorder. By exporting a Loadium record as a JMX file, you can create identical user behavior and actions followed, gather all data points such as delays, and provide a script that can be executed with as many concurrent users as necessary. With this approach, you can detect issues like poor page response, server failures, and page delays in advance, even when the server is under heavy load.
2. Avoiding Errors in the Operating System and Scripting
To guarantee that you are conducting a proper test, there are a few things to keep in mind. Performance indicators and response times sometimes are realized very quickly, while some system errors reveal themselves as minor programming mistakes. These mistakes reflect underlying difficulties and are not always reproducible. For example, even though the application’s response time appears to be acceptable, a stack overflow failure may occur less frequently. Even though such defects appear minor, they must be investigated for any potential issues.
You can inspect the script details on Loadium after your test script is generated on the platform. This helps you to detect any mistakes that need to be resolved before starting the load test process. The detailed performance data and stats generated by this tool assist in identifying hidden weaknesses and obstacles in order to improve application performance.
3. Using an Incorrect Workload Model
The workload model of a software shows how the program will be used in the production environment. It specifies the types of user behaviors that will be tested under load, as well as scenarios for each user and the ratio of users across all scenarios. The testing process is immediately affected if the workload model is designed incorrectly or has unclear features. Loadium is created to assist you in gathering realistic numbers and statistics in the production environment, knowing that an objective workload model is critical to the overall effectiveness of your test processes.
Loadium allows you to establish your systems and processes, determine the actions that must be taken like defining failure criterias, specify the number of users and transactions in a given time, and etc. Using Loadium, you can determine the type of transaction and overall volume of transactions on typical days and peak times, giving you an estimate of how much your operation will be impacted if you are unable to handle more traffic.
4. Lack of Proper Testing Infrastructure
In performance testing, there are many more significant elements beyond just load creation. The outcomes of a strategy are useless until you realize how your intended infrastructure is actually dealing with the issue. The source of an increase in response times might be either load creation or infrastructure, which testers must be aware of.
Loadium offers specific monitoring screens for every on-demand load generation to assist you tackle this challenge. When you have Loadium, you don’t need to spend time and money on extra resources or third-party applications because it’s already set up for testing. Loadium tool is based on cloud, highly scalable, and ready to use very quickly.
5. Load Injectors That Have Been Overloaded
Overfilling load injectors related to plenty of concurrent users on one load injection node or CSS-heavy target website, which impacts the amount of concurrent users you can place on one load injection node, is a typical performance testing error. Scaling a test, you should perform early tests with a small number of users to see how much demand can be properly handled per node on your testing environment.
You can use Loadium to gradually or quickly boost the number of virtual users during a test to see how performance is affected under heavy demand. To build up your benchmark performance measurements, start load testing with a low number or virtual users and run them for several minutes. You may then raise the number of users by every ten minute until you reach 100%. You can keep adding virtual users until you find the maximum capacity your site can take before it goes down.
6. KPI’s Not Specified Correctly
KPIs, are a set of measures that specify the limits you want or don’t want to go above. In load testing, KPIs show user and traffic statistics for apps and websites to see if they can manage a specific level of traffic on their servers. There are several KPIs that need to be carefully considered, such as the number of users, requests per second, response time, etc. These KPIs should be specified appropriately which many testers struggle to accomplish.
You may not only accurately construct KPIs using Loadium, but the reports provided by this tool also assist teams in assessing the performance of specified KPIs. You can use Loadium to examine these metrics and identify any bottlenecks that may be affecting user performance.
7. Use of Hard-Coded Data on a Regular Basis
Sometimes performance testing developers make the error of writing scripts with difficult parameter values. The goal of load testing is to be realistic, however, utilizing the same data coming from user requests is not close to reality. Although changing parameters may not be required in all cases, it is vital to evaluate those in which performance may fluctuate and supply realistic data to obtain precise performance evaluation.
It’s simple to check script information, alter scripts, and add custom parameters with Loadium. Using Loadium Recorder, you can quickly create scripts with specific criterias for load testing without any technical knowledge. It allows you to easily find and navigate your way around software applications, testing various pathways that your users could take. As a result, it’s possible to build a more comprehensive test suite that covers a wider number of scenarios.
8. Lack of a Systematic Approach
When you consider how to-do lists are in everyday life, you can imagine how significant they are in performance testing. Solid performance testing necessitates following a rigorous approach. It is critical to recognize that each testing process must have an objective, and each test run must be written in such a way that it is apparent when the objective has been met. Most firms, on the other hand, do not always do it right. They fail to describe all performance tasks prior to the application’s first release, resulting in major performance problems afterwards.
However, the challenge of describing everything, including how and when it should be done, may be solved with the help of a load testing tool.
Loadium offers a great alternative for keeping things simple and seamless, testing one thing at a time in a logical manner and analyzing trends and throughput. This way, demonstrating the results will be lot easier.
9. Performance Testing is Not a Priority in the Beginning
Performance testing is said to be done at the conclusion of the software development life cycle since the entire system can’t be checked until it’s stable. This is a key flaw in the testing process that includes postponing and fixing errors at the application’s final phases. Performance testing is an important aspect of the SDLC, hence it should begin right at the start of the testing cycle. Testing each iteration of an application ensures that the servers can withstand and manage high traffic.
It becomes easier to make sure that every element is thoroughly evaluated for functionality and performance by introducing performance testing early in the process. Keep in mind that the more frequent you test, the more mistakes you’ll discover. And the sooner you discover problems, the easier and less expensive it is to correct them. You may check out Loadium for this, which assists with continuous performance testing in real-world settings, assuring that the application meets the expectations of users with each release. This tool facilitates the execution of a web page load test or a REST API load test throughout a sprint.
10. Endurance Testing is Not a Priority For Us
When things become backed up at the last minute before implementation, regardless of how detailed your strategy was, endurance/soak testing is the first thing to be affected negatively. This sort of testing examines the performance of an application over a long period of time. Endurance testing necessitates the use of testing tools since it lasts a long time and consumes a lot of data. As a result, testers move away from this type of testing, leaving little time for soak testing.
Soak tests are wonderful when used in combination with your load testing approach, and a cloud-based platform is the ideal way to simulate the most realistic circumstances. The suggested tool is Loadium, which allows you to do soak tests and choose the amount of concurrent users for a certain period of time. Furthermore, you may modify your load in real-time to fine-tune conditions and gain a better knowledge of performance in different scenarios.
Conclusion
Performance testing reports and analyses assist in understanding the application’s performance in a real-world setting. This allows them to make critical judgments about changes prior to the product’s release in the industry. As a result, while planning for a testing process, it’s crucial to consider every potential testing aspect and prevent making mistakes. You should give Loadium a try if you’re seeking for a performance testing tool that’s simple to use, affordable, and capable of providing a complete performance solution. Though the top ten most frequent performance testing mistakes are simple to make, using tools like Loadium will make it much easier to prevent them.