Checklist of Load Testing Best Practices

You may have a mixed track record when it comes to personal New Year resolutions, but they’re a great way to jumpstart the initiatives that you’ve always wanted to implement at work. 

Load testing is an often neglected corner of software development that’s becoming increasingly important in today’s high-performance world, which makes it the perfect candidate for ambitious changes. These efforts enable you to deploy more frequently and confidently, knowing that bottlenecks won’t creep up suddenly or over time.

Read about the four ways that you can get the most out of your performance tests in the New Year.

Use these best practices to ensure that your load tests are effective without breaking the bank.

• Replicate Your Production Environment
  Test environments should be an exact replica of the production environment in order to facilitate the most accurate load testing results.
• Incorporate Think Time into Tests
  Browser-based tests should incorporate user think time — or the time it takes users to read the page before taking another action.
• Focus on Realistic Loads
  The goal isn’t to crash your server (unless you’re stress testing), but rather, to see how it performs under a realistic load.
• Monitor Resource Usage
  Most people measure test server metrics and browser behavior, but it’s equally important to measure resource usage.
• Use Dynamic Data
  Dynamic data is essential for creating a realistic load — especially if you use anonymized real-life data.

If you’re interested in load testing, sign up for a free trial of LoadNinja to reduce your costs, increase your test coverage, and get the most value out of your performance tests.