Access Testing

What is it?

Performance testing is designed to check the performance of a site or application under varying amounts of load. Performance is measured by:

• Response – how long the user has to wait between actions
• Stability – whether the system functions correctly under load
• Scalability – how much load the system can sustain and how it behaves under excessive load

Why do it?

With a multi-user system, failure is usually not an option. Whether internal or external, a slow or malfunctioning system will cause users to seek alternatives and cause damage to the business.

Modern systems are very complex, and comprise too many interfaces to be predictable without testing. With performance testing, you find out whether your system can support your business model before your users tell you it cannot.

85%-90% of systems fail to meet their performance targets before testing and tuning. Most systems meet their targets after testing and tuning.

The Access way

At Access, we have many years of experience delivering performance testing to a variety of clients. Our winning formula is:

• A very experienced team
• A well developed methodology
• Working with the internal team to identify and fix performance bottlenecks
• Test using your own infrastructure or Access’ hosted solutions
• Knowledge transfer to ensure the internal team can repeat tests in the future

Performance testing terms

These are some of the terms we use to describe our service. For a full description of our methodology please contact us.

• Shakedown test – an initial, low volume test to ensure your software does not fail at low load levels and that all systems are ready for a full test
• Volume test – a test for response times as the system is subjected to an increasing volume of activity
• Stress test – once a system is performing at its target load levels, we gradually increase use to determine the point at which the system can no longer cope
• Soak test – a sustained test to discover the down side of long-term use
• Point test – tests specific system elements to ensure they are performing correctly