Confused about the subtle differences between a stress test, performance test or a load test? Don’t get lost in the technobabble! Altentee uses the following terminology to help describe the different types of tests we conduct:

1. Shakeout – single script, single user, low volume scenarios whose main purpose is to confirm a correctly configured test harness (script, parameters, data, correlation, iterations) and environment.
2. Baseline – arbitrary user/volumes (typically low with multiple iterations) used to establish a baseline or reference point for further testing. Can also be used to explore/set SLAs if they have not been defined by the business using minimum sample sizes appropriate to establish a baseline.
3. Load / Volume – often expressed in terms of intended production load at 100% or variations of depending on the desired test outcome. Can also incorporate growth scenarios e.g. 200%. Can also be structured to incrementally increase and sustain load up to a target so that utilization metrics can be collected for capacity modelling at each increment (e.g. ramp up from 100 to 200 users at increments of 20 additional users, with sustained execution of 20 minutes at each increment).
4. Stress / Stress to Break – loads greater than intended production loads or with the specific purpose to identify component failure or ‘break’ points. Other variants include Surge / Spike testing simulating peak demands over shorter timeframes.
5. Soak / Endurance – long running tests to establish performance over longer timeframes and any anomalies over time.
6. Failover / Availability – targeted tests under load in failover conditions. Can also be used to test disaster recovery or availability scenarios.
7. Component Based – Targeted tests designed to isolate and examine components (functional and/or specific technologies/platforms) under load.
8. Penetration / Security – with the increasing inclusion of security related non-functional requirements, targeted load tests which focus on application level and/or hardware level security NFRs.
9. Tuning – cyclic / iterative performance testing using any number of variables in a process of test, tune, retest and compare (for improvement).

Still confused? Contact Altentee and we’ll help explain our approach.