Top 7 approaches to perform continuous performance testing

New and advanced technological aspects are being bought into the software development process by businesses. With the quantum amount of complex work, there may be instances where a few of the software features may not be tested up to the mark or standards. This will eventually lead to performance-related issues, thereby impacting the performance of a software product or application that has been built. For this purpose, there are many organizations that are considering continuous performance testing as a viable and productive solution and hence are incorporating it into their specific business processes. In this article, you will get to know the top seven approaches to performing continuous performance testing.  

What is continuous performance testing? 

It is a testing method wherein an application's performance is tracked while it is under increased load on a continuous basis. The testing process is incorporated by continuous performance testing into the CI/CD pipeline.   

Following are the seven approaches to perform continuous performance testing: 

1. Testing early and often: Testing early is not only necessitated by the test-driven model but, it also means testing often. As soon as the earliest development code is going to be executed, the testing process should be initiated. Another round of tests should be kicked off as soon as every iteration that follows. This in turn makes the testing process less time-consuming and more easier.  

2. Encourage clear communication: Transparent and frequent communication should be encouraged among teams. Continuous testing requires communication to be carried out without any issues, otherwise, communication bottlenecks may eventually create a problem in the testing process. Testers and developers must work in a collaborative manner during every stage of the development cycle. 

3. Reporting and monitoring activities should be carried out accordingly: Since testers and developers collaborate, test reports should be passed to all the members. The monitoring should be done for all tests at all stages with specific reports. 

4. The significance of test-driven: A test-driven approach is one of the key aspects of continuous performance testing. Testing is required throughout the entire development cycle by the continuous test-driven approach right from beginning to end. Whenever a new feature is created by the development team, new tests need to be created every time. So, with every change, there is no need to reinvent, rather there should be a concurrent evolution of the test suite with the development. 

5. The strategic value of SLAs: Certain specific expectations should be founded based on the performance Service Level Agreements (SLAs). The specific performance level that qualifies as a successful test result should be ascertained by the application's SLAs.       

For example, the SLA states that an application should always exceed or meet a certain level of throughput at any specific point in time. This will in turn be set as a baseline that defines the merit of a successful test. 

6. Existing testing assets can be repurposed: The efficiency of continuous performance testing can be scaled up by repurposing current testing components. For example, to ascertain the URLs associated with customers and analyze operational system logs, AI is used by many businesses. The prioritization of these paths can be done for testing using automation.   

7. Build servers should be used to run recurring tests: For every release, performance tests should be an integral part. The continuous performance test can be initiated on the build server and the test results can be incorporated into the build tool itself. As a result, the project that was initiated by the developer can verify the finished product and subsequently learn from the changes. The performance concerns that may arise can also be addressed accordingly.   

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing continuous performance testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a premium software testing services company that will provide you with a feasible testing strategy that is in line with your project specific requirements.