Design Ethiopia

Load testing ensures that you can support a large number of simultaneous users without dropping information in the transfer process. You can load-test the number of concurrent users that can view your pages out, more critically, you may want to focus on the number of simultaneous transactions that can occur.

Load testing will give you an idea of the number of users or transactions you can expect before experiencing trouble. This will help you understand how your site might handle a spike in traffic, or how well it will stand up to service limitations due to limited back-end or ISP capacity.

When performing these tests, you’ll want to be sure that the number of users you can handle is sufficiently higher than your average number of users. Estimating such numbers is an art form. At the very least, you should be able to handle spikes of three to four times your normal traffic during peak hours.

Again, this also depends on the type of site you have. If you are selling products, then you may expect even larger spikes that coincide with product releases on your web site, and so you may want to set your threshold for much larger spikes (e.g., the spike that comes when a new Harry Potter book is released).

In evaluating what level support you need for various loads, ask yourself the following questions: How critical is it that people can access your site? Do you lose money if people can’t get there or perform transactions?

What kind of users do you have: a more dynamic user base or a static, consistent user base? (A dynamic user base, one with more turnover in users, may be more highly variable in load, while a more static user base may provide more predictable numbers.) What kind of content do you have? Do you have time-dependent features, such as found on a news site?

Outsourcing
One of the approaches to testing is is outsource the work. Specialized testing companies can perform a wide variety of tests that are often difficult and expensive to perform in-house. In addition, they often have access to a wide diversity of users and testing environments.

For example, they may have several sites around the world that they can use to test global bandwidth or cross cultural issues. If you require a good deal of testing and don’t necessarily have the expertise and equipment in house, you may want to consider out sourcing as a possible solution.