What is Stress Testing?

Updated March 16, 2023

Introduction to Stress Testing

Stress Testing is performed on any software application, which needs to be validated for its sturdiness and dependability under different atmospheres and situations. During the dynamic stress testing process on the software application, it is also essential to observe and validate the failure management or error handling methods used in the application development process. This involves hitting the application with extreme conditions and observing the behavior of the application for those conditions.

Reasons for Conducting Stress Testing

Most of us will be pondering over the reasons to perform Stress Testing. So before moving any further, let us first discuss some important reasons for subjecting the application under test to Stress Testing.

• The very first reason is to test for a data recovery option in case of system failure. During Stress Testing, the tester verifies that the system will store the data or not so as to recover it later before it crashes.
• Another importance of this testing lies in determining the security issues(if any) that might arise in the case of an unexpected system failure.
• It also helps verify if the system will print meaningful error messages when it fails or crashes. The objective here is to receive an error that is self-explanatory and general in nature instead of printing any random exception generated at the backend.
• Another useful reason for subjecting an application under test is to monitor the system’s performance and behavior during the time of unexpected failures or crash.

Aim/Significance of Stress Testing

Stress testing or software testing is a significant evaluation exercised throughout various firms that incorporates the robust venture framework. The attempt is to establish operation on its robustness; a mistake in handling ruptures the system under test by confusing the sources.

Foremost intent of stress testing:

• It should be certain that the operation falters, henceforth making it obvious to restoration. In other terms, this peculiarity is known as Recoverability. Software testing or Stress testing can be adapted for use to unveil data malfeasance.
• Oftentimes, race conditions and memory leaks are identified under stress testing. The memory leak is a sort of resource leak that occurs when software governs memory distribution so that the memory that is no further necessitated is not set free/. Memory leaks can ensue when an object is deposited in memory but cannot be reached by the running code.
• A progressive research tool that can trace memory leaks commonly monitors both the assigning and nonassigning of memory.
• Just as a charismatically allotted block of memory proceeds out of reach without getting free, the device jots the whereabouts of the leak. Most devices then note that data to a log. At some, it might stop the implementation of the code instantly and reach out to the line of code where the implementation happened.

Examples of How to Administer Stress Testing of Memory Leaks

Given below are the examples mentioned:

Example #1

The stress testing of memory leaks is administered by stimulating a wide volume of actions that up shots in the creation, storage and elimination of data in memory and storing the system to the status of the fiasco to watch out if the system recoups easily.

Example #2

With the proviso that an e-business application, a stress testing tool or writing can be put to use to arouse an excellent number of users adding a very big number of things to their cart, enumerating and withdrawing items from their cart, and striving to checkout. This is one of the tests that will help in figuring out if there are memory leaks in the shopping cart segment or the checkout method.

Five Paradigm / Paragon of Stress Testing

We will consider that the Performance testing team brings forth to stress test e-trade application that trades in camping essentials.

1. To implement general activities like surveying the goods, adding, eliminating goods from the cart and buying the goods, these virtual users are programmed.
2. The number of users mounts promptly wherein it is in the position of break down until the website smashes into and is no longer capable of regulating further exchange.
3. The added points that can be apt and can be written down.
4. The functioning of the website and how it conducts at this time, and if it can recoup easily.
5. The repercussions of the analysis are employed to distinguish bottlenecks, completion enhancement areas, restoration, failover tool.

For such an instantaneous boost in the totality of visitant in the website, in order to handle these conditions, stress testing is very essential. Failure in managing such an unforeseen boost could prevail on to the loss in income and goodwill. To formulate stress testing propitiously, the system should showcase an error message while under maximum stress conditions, and as the load emerges as conventional, it is presumed to be able to recoup.

Different Types of Techniques Used

There are several methods or techniques for testing the application against stress. These are namely – transactional testing technique, exploratory testing technique, distributed testing technique, systematic testing technique, application stress testing technique, and so on.

Some of them are given below:

1. Transactional Testing

Exactly what the name hints, the transactional type of stress testing tests the amount of stress an application can take at the time of transactions between one application to another.

2. Distributed Testing

In this method of testing, all the clients associated with the server are examined. The server’s position and accountability are disseminating a group of stress tests amongst every client and following up on their situation.

3. Exploratory Testing

In this stress test method, the operation is tested for unusual circumstances for which the chances of occurrence in real-time are very unlikely.

Few instances of this type of stress testing for testing such rare scenarios are:

• Notably, the vast amount of simultaneous users tries to sign in to the application under test.
• Data is added in a very substantial amount in the collection of data.

4. Application Testing

This type of stress testing application is commonly applied to reveal shortcomings linked to bottlenecks in performance, network issues, data blockages, and locks.

5. Systematic Testing

Systematic testing is done to try out several operations that operate on a server. It allows the testing team to identify where data of one software blocks to alternative software.

Various Tools Available for Stress Testing

Usually, all the performance testing tools that are employed for load testing can also be applied for this testing.

The ones that are most generally used are given below:

• Loadrunner: Loadrunner from HP is the extensively accepted tool to execute stress testing, and the aftermaths procured by Loadrunner are contemplated as a benchmark.
• Jmeter: An open-source tool available for free is a Java application that is able to conduct all types of performance testing.
• Neo Load: This method is adopted to carry out stress testing on the web and, besides that, on mobile applications. It has innumerable dominance, some of which are backing all major servers approachable in the market, could be utilized to handle this testing on ERP, CRM, and Business Intelligence sort applications, etc.

Approach to Stress Testing

The procedure involved to direct stress testing is more or less similar to the steps used to conduct testing because it is a type of performance testing.

Given below are seven ways that are used to manage any type of performance testing, be it volume testing, load testing or stress testing.

• Recognizing the testing ambiance: Detecting the network configurations details, the software and the hardware details, and other tools required for stress testing an application.
• Identifying the performance approval patterns: Segregate the implementation metrics used for this testing to investigate the application’s execution. In addition to this, it also detects the accomplishment norms for a stress test.
• Make scheme and design for stress testing: This process involves generating a stress test plan, Performance test framework, etc.
• Design the test background: Equipping the test ambience, mechanism and resources crucial to implement each strategy as traits and elements become accessible for the test.
• Execute test design: Enlarge the stress tests by following the test design best methods.
• Execute tests: Administer and monitor the tests. Authenticate the tests, test information, and repercussions in the assemblage.
• Scrutinizing the outcome: Amalgamating and distributing the outcome data achieved after the test. After confirming that the benchmark data have not violated the threshold value and the set limits, the required data is collected, which marks the end of testing a specific feature in some specified environment.

Difference Between Stress Testing vs Load Testing

Given below are the differences mentioned:

Load Testing	Stress Testing
The operation is examined by charging it to its highest potential and taping its answer.	The system is full beyond its ability to the notch of failure, and its performance is documented.
Checks for limitations and metrics like reaction time at the top load, transactions per seconds, throughput, etc.	Other than metrics like throughput, transactions per second, etc. In addition, other metrics like errors per second, number of failed transactions, users with errors, server restoration time are listed.
It is done to determine the purpose of the load that the application/system can resist, the attainment levels at the limits.	It is done to learn how if the application falters, it is recouped. It is also performed to study how the application responds under strange heavy loads.

Metrics for Performing Stress Testing of an Application

Metrics are a crucial performance pointer.

The most regularly applied metrics are referred below:

• Mean response time of a transaction: It means the meantime a transaction takes while running every second during the execution of the scenario.
• Sum of a number of transactions that happened each second: The number of transactions passed, failed or terminated while execution of the scenario.
• All the transactions are done every second: The number of transactions passed, failed or terminated while execution of the scenario for every transaction that takes place.
• The number of errors occurring per second: An estimated mean of the number of errors experienced at the time of execution of the scenario.
• A number of hits per second: During the execution of the scenario, users make several requests to the webserver every second. The total count of it gives the number of hits per second.
• Response time of the transaction when submitted to heavy load: During the execution of the scenario, the number of virtual users directly relates to the time taken by a transaction.

Conclusion

Stress testing or software testing is a significant evaluation exercised throughout various firms that incorporates the robust venture framework. This test mainly determines the system on its robustness and error handling under extremely heavy load conditions. It will also test beyond the general operating point to evaluate the working of the system under the extreme conditions of overload to ensure the capability of the system to bear the stress. It is critically important for the system to recover after being subjected to Stress Testing as such type of stress has a high probability of occurrence in the production environment. The system is tested to showcase proper error messages while under maximum stress conditions.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to What is Stress Testing? Here we discuss reason, aims, examples of memory leak, five paragons, five types used for stress testing respectively. You can also go through our given articles to learn more –

1. System Testing
2. Stability Testing
3. Security Testing
4. Static Testing