Testing

The Technical Evaluation Environment (TEE) concept introduced in the Solutions Options phase only provides a brief insite into the validity of a solution. More granular testing is required which can validate requirements. For example, there maybe a requirement to support 500 concurrent users and by developing specific tests, a load test can be run with 500 users or a smaller test of 50 users run against a single server and the results extrapolated.

Performance Testing

Performance testing is about creating a usable environment, one where users will be actually able to use the applications in an acceptable manner.

Performance testing is NOT about finding bugs in applications, finding out whether a server can handle the number of required users, finding out the maximum number of users a server can adequately handle before degrading.

Load Testing

The objective of load testing is to, identify and correct any issues created by simulating 'live' conditions, determine the satisfactory working level of a system and it's components, determine the satisfactory working levels of different applications.

Load testing is an extension of performance testing, where the baseline created for acceptable usage is tested against by simulating 'live' conditions. This can be achieved by, increasing the number of users using the system concurrently, increasing the size of data used and by increasing the time taken to run tests.

Stress Testing

The objective of stress testing is to, determine whether a system can recover from an excessive demand on it's resources and determine whether a system can continue operating with decreasing resources.

Excessive demand can occur when too many users access the systems and this can lead to the user experience being disrupted.

Volume Testing

Load testing can be further expanded to include volume testing where the volumes of data expected to be used by each of the users can be put through the systems whilst they are under load.