Mirroring the Production Environment

Putting It Together in a Performance Test Plan

The performance test plan is a strategy or formal approach to allow everyone involved in a Web application, from the development team, test team, and management team, to understand exactly how, why, and what part of the application is being performance tested . The following sections are found in a performance test plan:

• Application overview

  This gives a brief description of the business purpose of the Web application. This may include some marketing data stating estimates or historical revenue produced by the Web application.

• Architecture overview

  This depicts the hardware and software used for the performance test environment, and will include any deviations from the production environment. For example, document it if you have a Web cluster of four Web servers in the production environment, but only two Web servers in your performance test environment.

• High-level goals

  This section illustrates what you are trying to accomplish by performance testing your Web application. Examples include identifying what throughput and concurrent usage levels you will be striving for as well as the maximum acceptable response times.

• Performance test process

  This will include a description of your user scenarios, tools you use to stress test, and any intricacies you will put in your stress scripts. This section will also explain what ratios and sleep times or user think times you will include in your test script.

• Performance test scripts

  The scripts are unlikely to be completed until after your performance analysis cycle has finished. But it is important to include these in the test plan to make them available in the next release or phase of the Web application test cycle. Because stress test scripts take time and effort to create, having test scripts available as a reference for future testing can save time.