Several things determine how a product such as a server, system, software, or application is accepted in the market.
The main one among them is the performance of the product. That is to say, how well a product performs can determine user experience and how well they use it.
And since the primary purpose for launching a product is to have people use it as often as possible, working on the performance is very important.
It is recommended that you work on the performance even before launching the product. This way, you can prevent having repeated crashes, spend money fixing those, and drive your customers into the arms of your competitors.
Performance testing is therefore crucial and is mainly done through load testing. Load testing involves using simulated situations to see how well a product performs and how well it handles traffic load from real users.
However, there are best practices that you must follow to have rewarding load testing, and in this guide, we will discuss the top 5 best practices.
What Load Testing Is and How It Works
Load testing uses tools to simulate traffic and see how well a system or application handles it. The simulated traffic load resembles how the program will be handled in real life.
This way, the results are as close to real-life as possible. And this can be seen in the manner that load testing works.
The simulation generates traffic and sends it to the program after specific parameters have been defined.
Then the program is closely observed to see it handles the generated load while identifying how well it performs based on the set criteria. This link explains how load testing works in detail.
Why Online-Based Companies Must Perform Load Testing
There are several reasons why companies must perform load testing, especially if they don’t want to lose money and their reputation in the market.
- To Identify the Maximum Capacity of a Product
Launching a product without proper testing is the same as throwing a child into the wild without teaching it the ways of the world; it would not be long before it gets overwhelmed.
To ensure that systems don’t crash too quickly, brands need to determine their maximum capacity, which can be done through load testing. - Check Product Performance
Knowing how well a product performs can also help you see if you have created something outstanding or not.
Load testing allows you to do this very quickly. - Measure Application Scalability
Aside from identifying how well the product can handle peak user load, companies also use load testing to measure how well a product can handle scalability, whether it is scalable, and how many more users it can carry concurrently. - Identify Bottlenecks and Drawbacks
Another reason companies must perform load testing is because the process helps spot the bottlenecks and drawbacks and help to make plain recommendations that can be used to improve the product to near perfection.
Without load testing, problems that should have been fixed before the product is delivered to the public go unnoticed during production.
And this can end up costing more to fix later while stirring dissatisfaction amongst actual users.
5 Best Load Testing Practices
- Set Realistic Test Scenarios
It is always good to understand what you are doing before getting into it. Then make the planned scenarios as realistic and close to life as possible.
What you are trying to achieve with a load test represents what would happen on the internet; hence, every plan and criteria should be built on this idea. - Use Proper Proxies
Because of how popular proxies have become, chances are most real users will be using various proxies to access the application. This means that the load test needs to include proxies as well.
This will give the system an initial idea of dealing with requests routed via proxies. Using residential proxies is even more advisable as it allows your application to have a prior understanding of how to handle proxies. - Think About The End-Users
The underlying motive behind developing any application is to make a profit, but this would be impossible without customer satisfaction.
This means that while running a test, what you should be thinking about the most shouldn’t be how much revenue you can rake in with such an application but how much customer satisfaction you can deliver.
This means you need to think about the customers from the scenarios you create to your criteria to judge performance. - Understand Your Environment
Before you run any test, you will need first to understand the environment you intend to work on and ensure it is as close to what is obtainable in real life.
You also need first to understand the different capacities of the system and try as many as possible.
This will allow you to have a better idea of everything you are doing and will even make your test more realistic. - Run The Test Regularly
Load testing is not a one-off event. You cannot run a test once and conclude. It is a process that is continuous.
First, you will need to test every scenario and criteria, and after concluding on those, you will need to implement recommendations and adjustments and then rerun tests.
Load testing needs to be done often and regularly to have the perfect product, especially after each upgrade or implementation.
Conclusion
Load testing is vital to developing the best product for customer satisfaction. Still, to run load testing correctly, you will need to follow specific laid down rules and best practices as described above.
