For any type of testing, the very first essential step for successful testing is the well-defined test plan. And when performing for Non-functional testing, especially the load test (also referred to as a performance test) then the importance of this test plan is automatically doubled then the normal ones. Like for high-trafficked websites, the most important challenge for QA is to see if the website is ready for peak traffic via a load test; the goal of the load test should be either:
- Validate that the website is capable of handling the requests of high volumes of users or
- Identify the breakpoints and bottlenecks where the current infrastructure fails.
And the Load Test Plan helps the user in performing Load Testing in the manner to:
- Build test scenarios that accurately emulate working environment
- Make a clear picture of resources which are required for testing
- Define success criteria in measurable terms
Load Testing Objectives
Load test plan should be based on the clearly defined testing objectives like:
- Determine if the application complies with contracts, regulations, and service level agreements (SLAs).
- Detect bottlenecks to be tuned.
- Assist the development team in determining the performance characteristics for various configuration options.
- Provide input data for scalability and capacity-planning efforts.