Real Agile Approach To Performance Testing

By Author: Stella Murugesan
Total Articles: 4
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Performance testing contributes to being a vital part of agile process. It is beneficial to a business firm in the development of supreme quality of software within a lesser time period.

It is also beneficial in reducing the development prices. The ultimate objective is testing the performance of the application at the early phase, and at times, during the developmental stage. It also plays an integral role in testing performance and functionality in the similar sprint.

It is because if you keep waiting for a longer period to conduct the performance tests, it will burn a huge hole in your pocket for incorporating the changes in the product.

Performance issues can prove to be destructive because as the software accomplishes the functional requirements, it might fail to deliver the functionality within the specific time frame. A worth mentioning thing about performance issues is that the solution might not be correct with the changes in the code.

The solution might involve changes in the footprint, architectural reformation or demands for certain topologies with higher horsepower. Such kind of repair ...
... is expensive and takes a longer period to come into effect.

If any kind of performance problems is present in the embedded code, it may be challenging to solve the same without the re-architecture of the silicon. Hence, performance at the early lifecycle is vital as the project costs are known to be managed. There are a plethora of tools which help in stimulating the load on the software and throttle the resources so that it is possible to observe any sort of realistic expectations of the performance.

In agile projects, the performance testing is accomplished in a sprint. As the performance testing is completed successfully, you will be capable of delivering a high end product to the potential buyer successfully. A specific approach is required for the introduction of performance testing. It is really easy to use functional testing in the agile environment.

Benefits of performance testing

Once coding begins in the agile projects, performance testing starts in parallel in the coding level. Once functional testing of the latest developed feature is completed, it is essential to response time or performance test the same for gaining an understanding of how much time is required for performing the functionality.

The latest developed functions should be integrated with the overall system. Here, the performance testing needs to be conducted for ensuring that the newly developed features should not result in any sort of performance bottlenecks in the system behavior. Conduction of performance testing during the phase of regression is useful in identification of hardware size, configuration or infrastructure problems.

Different phases of performance testing

The different sections of performance testing in an agile environment include

• Planning
• Execution
• Verify
• Release
• Planning

In this stage, the agile teams give priority to the different features which should be delivered during the latest sprint. Once the sprint backlog is prioritized and determined, the performance tester should begin the reviewing of different high level user stories and come up with a performance test plan.

The testers require deciding and assign the regression performance testing as well as the user stories for the performance testing. The performance testers should be speaking to the owner of the software for driving the criteria for the performance acceptance for the chosen user stories, with regards to the response time.

The daily stand ups play an integral role in each sprint and it offers the prerequisite opportunities to the different members of the team. It allows the team members and the Scrum Master know about the different problems and progress which they are encountering in their daily work. The duration for every sprint might differ from the duration of 2-4 weeks. The integrated system level, feature, response time testing, and performance testing at the code requires performing within the sprint in parallel.

The performance testers should offer recommendations on the best ever performance practices during sprint initiation which can be followed during the development of code. It is possible to ensure the robustness of the code with regards to performance.

As the team writes the code, the tester needs to perform the response or performance testing to find out the method response time, function response time as well as any sort of memory leakage problems. It is possible to conduct the same with the aid of different industry standard protocols such as .NET probe, HP Java Probe, etc.

Also, the performance tester should begin to start the response time or performance testing. After the execution of the performance tests, the results of the tests should be analyzed to find out if the performance acceptance criteria are accomplished or not.

The development team can get the feedback and make different fixes for ensuring that it is possible to get the code drop with the aid of the required performance standards. It is possible to conduct the same with the aid of different open source or proprietary performance testing tools.

It is a prerequisite to regression test the integrated features for making sure that the latest developed feature do not introduce any kind of performance problems in the whole system. It is possible to perform the activity in parallel to different kinds of performance testing activities. If resource or time is constrained, it is essential to execute the performance regression testing over the weekend or during those off hours.

Benefits of Real Agile Approach

There is a wide array of reasons why agile Performance testing services is adopted. It plays an integral role in the early performance checks. It helps in measuring performance during the lifecycle of the software, and the functionality and robust code can be delivered prior to the release of the application. Once performance is tested during the early phase of the lifecycle of the software, the testing plays an integral role in avoiding software changes or code.

The real agile approach is applicable to a bunch of projects. It is useful to the business firm in conducting performance testing in the agile environment with the aid of systematic methodology. It also helps to deliver a more robust application in the production environment.

Stella is a Content Writer and Digital Marketing Analyst at Indium Software. She has a demonstrated history of working in the Tech industry. She has written articles on testing, big data, analytics and latest trends in the tech world. She likes to try different cuisines and travelling to new places.