Performance Testing Life Cycle

What is Performance Testing Life Cycle (PTLC)?

The Performance Testing Life Cycle is a systematic process to carry out the non-functional testing of a software system or application. Most of the software industries follow this process to plan the performance testing activities and find out the performance bottleneck in the software system.

What is the need for Performance Testing Life Cycle (PTLC)?

A decade ago, performance testing was not so important and it could be a reason that a small part of the world was using the technology and the existing hardware and software were meeting their requirements. Now, there is a change in the scenario. When a start-up starts or launches a website or a mobile application, the questions that come to their mind are whether the application can handle X amount of users or not. whether the application is so responsive or not. Even the end users expect a quick response to their clicks. Day-by-day company and consumer requirements knee down the developer to think about a more tuned application which can handle multiple users load with quick response. Now, the questions are how they can measure the performance of an application. What would be the performance metrics? Which components should be involved in performance testing and on what basis?

To answer all these questions a process was evolved in which performance test activities are divided into a number of phases. The purpose was to set up a smooth and channelized process to achieve the performance testing goal. Each phase of this process is interdependent and has its own set of activities. All the phases are bound to a cycle called the “Performance Testing Life Cycle or PTLC”.

Advantage of Performance Testing Life Cycle:

Actually, the Performance Testing Life Cycle (or PTLC) is not only made for software industries to set up a process for performance testing, but it also provides benefits to the client. A client or project team sets the expectation about the application performance at the initial phase of PTLC and then compares the expected result with the actual result at the time of delivery (in the last phase of PTLC). Performance Testing Life Cycle helps the application development companies to get the proper requirement from the client, develop a tuned application, boost up the performance of the application and meet the client’s expectations.

Phases of Performance Testing Life Cycle:

PTLC defines different phases of performance testing from risk assessment to test result analysis. It bridges the gaps between the expected result and the actual result (only related to performance testing) which helps to deliver a responsive application with better performance.

A quick summary of PTLC phases:

1. Risk Assessment

  • Purpose: To check the eligibility of the components for performance testing on the basis of a risk score.
  • Accountability: Performance Test Lead/Manager
  • Deliverable: Performance Testing Risk Assessment Document
  • Read the full article to get more detail: Risk Assessment in Performance Testing

2. Requirement Gathering & Analysis

  • Purpose: To understand the client’s expectation and conclude the requirements
  • Accountability: Performance Test Lead/Manager
  • Deliverable: Non-Functional Requirement Document (Performance Testing Requirement Document)
  • Read the full article to get more detail: Non-functional Requirement Gathering

3. Performance Test Planning

  • Purpose: To prepare test strategy as per Non-Functional Requirement
  • Accountability: Performance Test Lead/Manager
  • Deliverable: Performance Test Plan Document
  • Read the article to get complete detail: Performance Test Planning

4. Performance Test Design (Scripting)

  • Purpose: To create the test scripts as per the approved Performance Test Plan
  • Accountability: Performance Test Team Members (Engineer (Create)/Analyst (Create)/Lead (Create/Review)/Manager (Review))
  • Deliverable: Performance Test Scripts
  • Read the article to get complete detail: Performance Test Scripting

5. Workload Modelling

  • Purpose: To create the workload scenario as per the approved Performance Test Plan using test scripts
  • Accountability: Performance Test Team Members (Engineer/Analyst)
  • Deliverable: Performance Test Scenarios
  • Read the article to get complete detail: Workload Modelling

6. Performance Test Execution & Result Analysis

  • Purpose: To execute the performance tests as per timelines documented in the approved Performance Test Plan and analyse the test results
  • Accountability: Performance Test Team Members (Engineer/Analyst)
  • Deliverable: Individual Test Results
  • Read the article to get complete detail: Performance Test Execution & Result Analysis

7. Reporting and Recommendation

  • Purpose: To prepare and publish the test report and provide the recommendations
  • Accountability: Performance Test Lead/Manager
  • Deliverable: Final Performance Test Report
  • Read the article to get complete detail: Performance Test Reporting

3 thoughts on “Performance Testing Life Cycle”

  1. Hello Team,

    Is there any template for Performance testing as a service which to be shared with customer

    Reply

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