Stress and performance tests

Stress and performance tests of a website allow you to wait for user traffic at peace, not having to worry about availability of the service. When implementing a new service or application, usually we only learn that it manages the traffic after making it public. This can be prevented, weak points of the website can be discovered and we can make sure that it will work well under planned traffic. Load tests often find very serious mistakes that would certainly lead to service performance issues – it is enough that you forgot one simple index in database. For this we use performance tests. Their goal is to simulate web traffic that usual users make every day.

As Hostersi, we perform several types of tests:

• Load Test - involves gradually increasing the load on a system or application to assess how they behave under expected production overload conditions. The goal is to determine how much load the system or application can handle before performance degradation or failure, such as whether the application still meets minimum performance requirements after an upgrade. The load test is performed by gradually increasing the number of users or load on an application or system until an overload point is reached (e.g., 5% error rate).
• Spike Test - involves rapidly and significantly increasing the load on the system over a short period of time to assess how the system handles sudden peaks in traffic. The goal is to determine whether the system can handle unexpected spikes in traffic, such as promotions or special events. This can be simulated by suddenly increasing the number of concurrent users or load on the system in a controlled manner to see how the system responds to sudden spikes in traffic.
• Soak Test (sometimes called Endurance Test) - involves maintaining a steady load on a system or application for an extended period to check for memory leaks or other resource problems. The goal is to determine whether the system is stable and does not degrade its performance during long-term operation. It is carried out by monitoring system resources, such as memory and CPU, to detect any leaks or performance degradation. It is mostly an extension of Load Test.
• Stress Test - involves pushing the limits of system performance, introducing failures or excessive load to identify the point at which the system stops performing as expected. The goal is to determine the limits of system performance, identify weaknesses and assess how the system behaves during unpredictable and extreme conditions.

The results of our completed tests for selected clients:

To run a typical performance test you need:

• a test infrastructure on which to run the test without burdening the production servers,
• a test scenario, i.e. the path (or paths) along which users move on the website/application,
• analysis of the platform's behavior during the test and adjustment of the test parameters,
• a report with test results and recommendations,
• sometimes multiple retests after adjustments and even multiple iterations of adjustments.

All these elements we can realize for you

We prepare the test infrastructure (on which we will perform the tests), the testing infrastructure (from which we will generate traffic), as well as the test scenarios. We will also perform the test itself, simulating the specified traffic. We also have a great deal of experience maintaining the platforms on which services and applications are hosted, so you can count on useful information on what to improve, what to change to achieve better results.

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