Simulating multiple users in a synchronised manner requires the use of performance tools. There are different types of performance test tools available on the market, ranging from open-source HTTP drivers to commercial types that can simulate state-of-the-art web technologies and proprietary ERP/CRM solutions. Some are even hosted as cloud-based solutions to simulate “outside the firewall” loads, common in today’s application delivery landscape. Even enterprise-class commercial performance testing tools may not offer out-of-box support for certain evolving and newer technologies. The licencing models adopted by the product vendors can be restrictive and expensive, and procurement decisions should only be made after careful analysis to understand the fitness of the tools in your own environment. Testhouse consultants are vendor-agnostic, certified on various performance test tools, and experienced in using the advanced product features.

Performance testing requires collaborative effort from business experts, performance testers, application developers, and infrastructure experts, along with a requirement for expensive tooling, dedicated environments, and large amounts of test data. The demands on resources and tools make performance testing an expensive exercise that needs a detailed plan to be a success. Often, the performance requirements can be ambiguous and the performance test objectives unclear, leading to incomplete testing exercises later in the software development lifecycle. Without careful thought, incorrect assumptions may be made about workloads, concurrency, environment scaling, the size and shape of test data, etc., which may lead to results different from those experienced in a live system. Business owners may develop false confidence in the system based on incorrect test results. Testhouse consultants can assist you in the accurate modelling of performance test scenarios by implementing good practices through proven organization- or project-level performance test strategies. With our help, you will be able to build and test for performance earlier in the lifecycle.

Performance testing requires specialised skills for stakeholder management and coordination, requirements elicitation, workload modelling, test tool installation and configuration, performance test scripting, results analysis and correlation, and performance uning and optimization. Compatibility of the test tools with technologies, availability of skilled resources, environment and data availability, security policies and procedures, etc. can present challenges to performance testing, irrespective of whether the exercise is one-off or part of a routine. Testhouse can provide the necessary additional help you may require on your time-critical projects. Should your organisation be keen to embed performance testing as a standard engineering practice, we can help you, irrespective of whether you are following a waterfall or agile methodology. Our consultants can function as an extension to your internal performance test team, assisting them to cover shortfalls in resources and skills.

Simulating multiple users in a synchronised manner requires the use of performance tools. There are different types of performance test tools available on the market, ranging from open-source HTTP drivers to commercial types that can simulate state-of-the-art web technologies and proprietary ERP/CRM solutions. Some are even hosted as cloud-based solutions to simulate “outside the firewall” loads, common in today’s application delivery landscape. Even enterprise-class commercial performance testing tools may not offer out-of-box support for certain evolving and newer technologies. The licencing models adopted by the product vendors can be restrictive and expensive, and procurement decisions should only be made after careful analysis to understand the fitness of the tools in your own environment. Testhouse consultants are vendor-agnostic, certified on various performance test tools, and experienced in using the advanced product features.

Performance testing in a waterfall project is normally undertaken towards the end. A large-scale end-to-end performance testing project takes weeks to complete and has dependencies on the completion of functional testing and production-like environments. Identified performance bottlenecks often require structural and design changes. Design changes late in the lifecycle are expensive and require additional cycles of testing. Performance testing in agile projects follows a different and layered approach, using multiple tools in shorter test cycles. Performance targets can be defined for different stages of development—at code, feature, and system levels. While code profilers can be used to performance optimise code, feature-level performance tests can be carried out within each sprint to meet “done criteria”. System-level tests can be carried out on a weekly or end-of-sprint basis to understand performance trends and how the addition of features affects the overall performance baseline. Our consultants can assist you in evolving your performance testing practices for agile projects.

E-commerce applications must be performant, consistent, and available to meet revenue goals. Slow applications drive customers to your competitors, while application unavailability affects the volume of trade. Internet load spikes are highly unpredictable, and events such as discount sales and clearances can drive application demand to extremes. Network-level peering issues can lead to poor performance for users in certain geographic regions. There is a growing trend to understand how well applications cope in real-world conditions. Performance testing in isolated test environments should be complemented with real application performance monitoring from different points on the globe. Application performance monitoring allows stakeholders to understand the amount of revenue lost through poor performance, besides giving them an opportunity to intervene pro-actively in case performance degradation is identified. There are different methods and tools for application performance monitoring. Our consultants can advise on how best to implement them for your maximum benefit.