What is Stress Testing?
Stress Testing is performed to determine the system’s robustness and error-handling capacity under heavy load or adverse conditions. It helps identify the breaking point of the system.
Objectives of Stress Testing
- Check system stability under peak load
- Identify breaking points and recovery ability
- Ensure system does not crash unexpectedly
Advantages
- Helps identify system limits
- Ensures reliability under extreme conditions
- Improves system scalability and robustness
Limitations
- Requires high resource setup for testing
- May be time-consuming to simulate real-world stress
- Can be costly for large applications
Stress Testing Process
- Define stress scenarios and objectives
- Identify system’s critical modules
- Simulate extreme load conditions
- Monitor system performance and failures
- Analyze results and improve stability
️ Example
Example: A banking website is tested with 10x more users than expected during a high-traffic event (like salary credit day) to check if the system can handle the pressure without crashing.
Best Practices
- Plan scenarios close to real-world peak loads
- Use monitoring tools to capture performance data
- Gradually increase load before applying extreme stress
- Document recovery strategies after failure
