Following are the steps involved in the Performance TESTING Lifecycle:

• Requirement Analysis: The first step is to determine all the requirements needed for testing after consulting with the clients and developers. This helps in determining the scope and objectives of testing and helps testers to plan out testing accordingly.
• Architecture Review: Once all the requirements are gathered and testing is planned, we perform an architectural review of the system under test.
• Test Strategy: Once the review is done, carefully layout the strategies required for performance testing that considers the following criteria -
  • RESPONSE time of the application
  • Application bottlenecks involving both software and hardware
  • Optimal configuration of the system
  • System capacity and scalability
  • Resource utilization percentage
  • Volume of data and workload capability of the application
• Test Design: Once the strategy is ready, the testers have to come up with automation scripts or prepare the testing ENVIRONMENT using the tools by following all the best PRACTICES and coding STANDARDS. The testers have to come up with various test scenarios covering both positive and negative cases.
• Test Execution: The scripts prepared in the previous step would be simulated and executed.
• Results Analysis: The result of test execution will be analyzed and documented for recording purposes. These metrics will be observed and tracked for any defects.
• Reports and Recommendations: The documented results will be presented to the developers along with the recommended resolutions.