Intro
There are numerous valuable features and functions in every new software package. Nevertheless, regardless of how beneficial a new application may be, it is susceptible to dependability, resource utilization, and scalability. Performance testing mobile apps aim to discover and eliminate performance bottlenecks in the system. If apps are introduced to the market with insufficient performance data, a negative reputation and a lack of sales success are likely.
What is Performance Testing
Mobile app performance testing is a non-functional software testing method that evaluates an application’s stability, speed, scalability, and responsiveness under a specified load. It’s a crucial step in assuring software quality. Still, it’s frequently viewed as an afterthought, performed in isolation, after functional testing has been finished, and in most cases, after the code is ready for release.
Performance testing’s objectives include analyzing application output, processor speed, data transfer velocity, network bandwidth utilization, maximum concurrent users, memory use, workload efficiency, and command reaction times.
The Importance of Mobile App Performance Testing
Improve website speed to engage customers
A sluggish and subpar website can never attract a sizable audience. In actuality, it will deter visitors from the site. Teams can examine the website’s speed and performance using automated testing techniques. In this approach, individuals with primary internet and bandwidth access can load the site, maintaining their attention and engagement.
2. Fix bugs before the product is released to the public.
Performance Testing is needed to assure that the application performs as planned. Diverse performance tests aid in achieving the desired outcomes and mitigating any risks that could compromise the application in the real world.
Fail-over Stress Tests measure the maximum load a system or application can withstand. This is vital for making the program market-ready, as it aids in abusing the application to discover flaws.
3. Increase the robustness of the application
Enterprises must guarantee that their applications are resilient even in the direst situations, such as network outages, cyberattacks, and virtual threats. Performance testing assures the application’s ability to endure in the market and perform consistently using various procedures.
Targeted Infrastructure Tests, for instance, are solitary tests that examine each layer of an application for performance concerns that may cause delays while delivering the intended performance.
4. Defend Market assertions
It is of the utmost importance for organizations to confirm that the application/software functions as advertised. This element is especially significant for online gaming applications and software. It is anticipated that it would handle the load of multiple concurrent gamers and offer the promised speed and performance.
During the execution of tests, some statistics are gathered to ensure the achievement of performance objectives, particularly those of Speed, Scalability, and Stability. This assists in pinpointing performance concerns.
5. Improving scalability
Enterprises must develop scalable and real-time upgradeable apps in response to the difficulties of the digital realm. Performance Testing highlights an application’s potential weaknesses and identifies where it must be fortified to be more scalable to accommodate upgrades and modifications.
Analyzing the statistics gathered from test executions can aid teams in identifying an application’s potential flaws and capabilities.
6. Increase the application’s stability and dependability
An application must be stable and produce consistent results regardless of any changes to its features, regardless of the shape it takes. With specialized performance tests, teams can determine if recent modifications or frequent releases disrupt the application’s behavior.
7. Evaluate different technology stacks
The increasing complexity of software applications has resulted in multiple technology stacks. Performance testing assists in identifying the weak links within the technological stack utilized to develop the application. This is essential for achieving the performance and outcomes required.
8. Develop an application’s responsiveness
Checking the speed of websites and applications can be accomplished with various free and commercial solutions. To ensure performance testing, both open-source and licensed technologies can be implemented.
Most Performance Testing solutions are browser-based, allowing for simultaneous testing to confirm that the application is compatible across all platforms and browsers. For organizations to fulfill their business objectives, responsiveness is a fundamental must.
9. Identify Database and API-related issues.
Today, obtaining data and maintaining the functionality of your Application Program Interface (API) is crucial. Performance tests, such as Load/Stress testing, enable teams to evaluate the application’s behavior and determine whether the server responds to the user’s request for data within a predetermined time frame. It also aids in determining how the API behaves and performs under severe load, which is essential.
Types of Performance Testing
Performance testing covers specialized test types that must be applied in specific ways, making it challenging to create an effective performance test strategy. Here is an overview of the most common performance tests and how they generate practical performance tests.
Load testing
Load testing evaluates the performance of a system as the load grows. This volume of labor may involve concurrent users or transactions. As workload increases, the system is monitored to measure response time and endurance. This workload is consistent with standard working conditions.
Stress Testing
Stress testing, also known as fatigue testing, is intended to measure system performance beyond the constraints of typical operating conditions instead of load testing. The mobile app or the software can handle some more users or transactions. Stress testing is to evaluate the software’s stability.
Spike testing
Spike testing is a type of mobile app performance testing when workloads are dramatically and repeatedly raised. The workload exceeds normal expectations for a brief period.
Endurance Testing
Endurance testing, often known as soak testing, studies how the software performs when subjected to a typical workload over an extended period. Endurance testing aims to identify memory leaks and other system flaws. (A memory leak happens when a system fails to release memory that has been deleted. The memory leak may degrade system performance or cause the system to fail.)
Scalability Testing
Scalability testing aims to verify whether software can efficiently manage increasing workloads. This can be determined by progressively increasing the user load or data volume while observing system performance. In addition, the workload may remain constant while resources such as CPUs and memory are modified.
Volume testing
This testing, also known as flood testing, evaluates the application’s capacity to process enormous volumes of data. The influence on reaction time and application behavior is investigated. This testing can discover bottlenecks and establish the system’s capability. This performance testing is essential for apps with large amounts of data.
Performance Testing Metrics
A metric is a measurement collected during the process of quality assurance. The performance metrics are used to determine the application’s vulnerable regions and calculate the application’s most important performance characteristics. These indicators demonstrate the software’s ability to respond to diverse user scenarios and manage user flow in real-time. It facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the actions’ outcomes and identifies improvement opportunities.
The metrics depend on the sort of software, its essential features, and the enterprise’s objectives. The following is a collection of performance metrics with universal parameters that you should track for each product.
- Response time: It is the time that elapses between when a server request is sent and when the server receives the final byte. KB/sec is the unit of measurement for this performance testing metric.
- Requests per second: When a client application submits an HTTP request to a server, the server generates and returns a response to the client. These requests might be from numerous data sources like multimedia files, HTML pages, XML documents, and JavaScript libraries. The number of consistent requests processed per second is a significant performance metric – requests per second (RPS).
- User transactions are a series of user actions performed through the software’s interface. By comparing the expected time to the transaction time (number of transactions per second), it is possible to evaluate the load performance of the software application.
- Virtual users per time unit: This performance testing statistic assists in determining whether the software’s performance reaches the desired standards. It aids the QA team in calculating the typical program load and its behavior under various load conditions.
- Error rate: This metric measures the ratio of correct to incorrect responses over time. Typically, the mistake happens when the load’s capacity is exceeded. And the percentage results are determined.
- Wait Time: This measure is often known as average latency. It represents when a request is made to the server and when the first byte is received. It is not to be mistaken with the response time, which considers a different time.
- Average Load Time: According to research, over forty percent of visitors are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. This statistic for measuring performance is the average time required to deliver a request. This statistic for measuring performance is the average time needed to provide a bid.
- Peak response time: This measure is comparable to average load time, but the significant distinction is that peak response time reflects the maximum time required to fulfill a request. Moreover, it indicates that at least one of the software’s components is flawed. Therefore, this measure is far more significant than the average load time.
- Concurrent Users: This measure reflects the number of active users at any time. It is one of the most commonly employed metrics for determining how software behaves under many virtual users. This performance testing measure differs from requests per second because the quality assurance team does not consistently create requests.
- Transactions passed/failed: This indicator represents the proportion of successful or unsuccessful requests relative to the total number of tests completed. It is equally important to users as the load time and is regarded as one of the most apparent measures for determining product performance.
- Throughput: It reveals the bandwidth utilized throughout the testing procedure. It specifies the maximum quantity of data that can pass via a network connection at a particular time. The unit of measurement is KB/s.
- CPU utilization: This statistic measures the time the central processing unit must process a request at a given moment.
- Memory utilization: This measure represents the resources needed to process a request relative to the physical memory of a particular device utilized for testing.
- Total user sessions: This indicator illustrates the traffic density over time. Depending on the duration of the product, for instance, the number of user sessions every month. This information may include the number of transmitted bytes and page visits.
What are the Common Challenges of Performance testing, and How to Solve Them?
Performance testing is not flawless. But these hurdles can be overcome-
- Lack of knowledge about Performance Testing
Experiencing a lack of understanding in numerous areas can be difficult. For instance, while participating in SDLC and recognizing the necessity to conduct a performance test on your application. However, many software companies and stakeholders do not acknowledge the importance of testing, so performance testing is not an integral component of the development procedure. Therefore, lack of knowledge becomes a difficulty in performance testing.
Solution:
Quality assurance is complex, and mastering every facet could be difficult. Therefore, it could be better to outsource the process and let subject matter specialists perform their magic. Then, armed with a thorough understanding of the procedure, the specialists can lead you and your team through the best application development methods.
2. Lack of Perfect Strategy:
A strategic strategy assists a team in achieving its objectives. A design or well-designed plan is required to comprehend the performance of any application, its numerous elements, response to user contact, or speed. Consequently, this influences the delivery of an application with flawless execution. A failure to get the test of performance needed results may stem from a lack of a strategy plan, including developers and software testers.
Solution:
The strategic approach to testing could assist all developers and testers with performance testing and data extraction to create perfect applications. The teams must first thoroughly understand the program and its features to establish a testing strategy that encompasses every element that must be tested, including load or stress, speed, and functionality. The team must then try all metrics.
2. Lack of Time and Budgets:
The DevOps team often disregards performance testing to save time and deploy the product to the market. However, they can forego the performance test if the DevOps team is constrained by funding or resources. Due to the missing steps, the estimated SDLC duration is therefore erroneous.
Solution:
The allocation of budget and resources should consider performance testing as an integral aspect of the SDLC. Since performance testing is an inherent part of the process, estimating the time required will be precise.
4. Using inappropriate testing tools:
In selecting mobile app performance testing tools, many things must be considered. Among these could be the cost of the license, the team’s skill set, and the application’s functionality. If you choose the incorrect mobile performance testing tools, you could waste significant time influencing your SDLC.
Solution:
The quality assurance staff should have an in-depth understanding of numerous tools. And before selecting one for the procedure, the team should be familiar with the program and its functionality.
5. Incorrect interpretation of outcomes:
Performing a performance test on your application allows you to evaluate its functionality. Unfortunately, incorrect analysis of test results may result in performance failure. With improper results, the test’s purpose will not be met, resulting in the release of an ineffective application to the market.
Solution:
Subject matter specialists should conduct the tests and interpret the results. The specialists understand the customer’s desires and how to fulfill them. Consequently, having a team of professionals that can effectively execute several tests, comprehend the application’s complexity, and operate by the requirements is essential.
6. Executing tests in an actual production environment:
Real-time user engagement could be hindered by the difficulty of performing tasks in a real production environment.
Solution:
Experts always recommend conducting performance tests in a copy of the production environment. A virtual environment will prevent you from experiencing problems in front of your customers while providing you the time to implement the changes in the natural environment and conduct tests for various scenarios.
Conclusion:
It is impossible to exaggerate the value of performance tests. Since any software, website, and application development aims to serve and delight consumers, these tests are crucial in any software development situation. The user’s sole concern is the software’s performance; the only method to meet them requires doing the appropriate tests.
