Volume Testing

Whichever title you choose (for us volume test) here we are talking about realistically exercising an application in order to measure the service delivered to users at different levels of usage. We are particularly interested in its behavior when the maximum number of users are concurrently active and when the database contains the greatest data volume.

The creation of a volume test environment requires considerable effort. It is essential that the correct level of complexity exists in terms of the data within the database and the range of transactions and data used by the scripted users, if the tests are to reliably reflect the to be production environment. Once the test environment is built it must be fully utilised. Volume tests offer much more than simple service delivery measurement. The exercise should seek to answer the following questions:

What service level can be guaranteed. How can it be specified and monitored?

Are changes in user behaviour likely? What impact will such changes have on resource consumption and service delivery?

Which transactions/processes are resource hungry in relation to their tasks?

What are the resource bottlenecks? Can they be addressed?

How much spare capacity is there?

The purpose of volume testing is to find weaknesses in the system with respect to its handling of large amount of data during extended time periods

Recommended Resources
• Testing Interview Questions - http://www.coolinterview.com/type.asp
• Testing Tools Interview Questions - http://www.coolinterview.com/type.asp
• What is Software Testing?- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing
• Software QA & Testing Resource Center- http://www.softwareqatest.com/
• Testing Faqs- http://www.testingfaqs.org/

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