Types of Performance Testing

Below are the listed types of Performance Testings

Load Testing

• Checks the application's ability to perform under anticipated user loads. The objective is to identify performance bottlenecks before the software application goes live.
• Checking system’s Performance by constantly increasing the load on the system until the time load is reaches to its threshold value.
• Load testing is perform to make sure that what amount of load can be withstand the application under test.
•  Load testing comes under the Non Functional Testing & it is designed to test the non-functional requirements of a software application.

Simple examples of Load Testing:

• Testing printer by sending large job. 
• Editing a very large document for testing of word processor
• Continuously reading and writing data into hard disk.
• Running multiple applications simultaneously on server.
• Testing of mail server by accessing thousands of mailboxes

Stress Testing:

• Involves testing an application under extreme workloads to see how it handles high traffic or data processing .The objective is to identify breaking point of an application.
• To determine or validate an application’s behavior when it is pushed beyond normal or peak load conditions.
• Stress testing is Negative testing where we load the software with large number of concurrent users/processes which cannot be handled by the systems hardware resources.
• Stress testing comes under the Non-Functional Testing & it is designed to test the non-functional requirements of a software application.

Endurance Testing

•  Is done to make sure the software can handle the expected load over a long period of time.
• Endurance testing involves testing a system with an expected amount of load over a long period of time to find the behavior of system.
• Let’s take an example where system is designed to work for 3 hrs. Of time but same system endure for 6 hrs. Of time to check the staying power of system. Most commonly test cases are executed to check the behavior of system like memory leaks or system fails or random behavior.
• Sometimes endurance testing is also referred as Soak testing.
• Soak testing involves testing a system with a significant load extended over a significant period of time

Spike Testing

• Spike testing is subset of Stress Testing.
• Tests the software's reaction to sudden large spikes in the load generated by users.
• Spike testing is done by suddenly increasing the load generated by a very large number of users, and observing the behavior of the system. The goal is to determine whether performance will suffer, the system will fail, or it will be able to handle dramatic changes in load.

Volume Testing

• Under Volume Testing large no. of. Data is populated in database and the overall software system's behavior is monitored. The objective is to check software application's performance under varying database volumes.
• The purpose of volume testing is to determine system performance with increasing volumes of data in the database.

Scalability Testing:

• The objective of scalability testing is to determine the software application's effectiveness in "scaling up" to support an increase in user load. It helps plan capacity addition to your software system.
• It is a type of non-functional testing.
• It is a type of Software testing that test the ability of a system, a network, or a process to continue to function well, when it is changed in size or volume in order to meet a growing need.
• It is the testing of a software application for measuring its capability to scale up in terms of any of its non-functional capability like load supported, the number of transactions, the data volume etc.