Web Performance Matters

Your new Web application is almost ready to go live, but you need to be sure it will handle the projected traffic -- before that traffic hits the site. You probably already know that you can't just collect up your working test scripts and loop through them at high speed.

And just five minutes with Google should be enough to convince you that software performance testing is not a trivial matter. So what should you do?

Read the book, of course! Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications is a new addition to Microsoft's MSDN Patterns & Practices library. It's one of a series of online and print Guides that are intended to provide readers with detailed information about "technical problem domains and engineering practices."

Overview

The Beta-1 version of this particular guide was released on May 25, 2007. It is designed to teach an end-to-end approach for implementing performance testing. ... Whether you are new to performance testing, or looking for ways to improve your current performance testing approach, you will find insights that you can tailor for your specific scenarios. The Table of Contents supports the claim of comprehensive coverage:

Parts

• Part 1, Introduction to Performance Testing
• Part II, Exemplar Performance Testing Approaches
• Part III, Identify the Test Environment
• Part IV, Identify Performance Acceptance Criteria
• Part V, Plan and Design Tests
• Part VI, Execute Tests
• Part VII, Analyze Results and Report
• Part VIII, Performance Testing Techniques

Chapters

• Introduction
• Ch 01 - Fundamentals of Web Application Performance Testing
• Ch 02 - Types of Performance Testing
• Ch 03 - Risks Performance Testing Addresses
• Ch 04 – Core Activities
• Ch 05 - Managing an Agile Performance Test Cycle
• Ch 06 - Coordinate Performance Testing with an Iteration-Based Process
• Ch 07 – Managing the Performance Testing Cycle in a CMMI Environment
• Ch 08 - Evaluating Systems to Improve Performance Testing
• Ch 09 - Performance Testing Objectives
• Ch 10 - Quantifying End User Response Time Goals
• Ch 11 - Consolidate Various Types of Performance Acceptance Criteria
• Ch 12 - Modeling Application Usage
• Ch 13 - Modeling User Variances
• Ch 16 - Test Execution
• Ch 17 - Performance Testing Math
• Ch 18 - Reporting Fundamentals
• Ch 19 - Load Testing Web Applications
• Ch 20 - Stress Testing Web Applications

Developing the guide has been a cooperative effort by a team of five authors: J.D. Meier, Carlos Farre, Prashant Bansode, Scott Barber, and Dennis Rea. It is an product of their larger Performance Testing Guidance Project, which is hosted on CodePlex, Microsoft's open source project hosting web site.

Download the Guide

Now that the Beta-1 version of the guide is out, the authors want your feedback -- and as soon as possible, naturally. But even if you can't help in that way, you can still download a copy [PDF] and start using it today, while it is being polished for final publication. It already has 186 pages of solid information. When scanning I found myself wishing for a few more diagrams to break up the text, but this is certainly a major piece of work.

Maybe you've already read about this project, or seen this news item on one of the authors' own blogs. I read about it for the first time this weekend, and it seemed like a valuable and educational project, and one worth broadcasting.

So get yourself a copy, and even if you don't have time to review it, help to spread the word.

Tags: performance management, performance testing, software testing, testing, Guide,
Performance Testing Guidance, Web Applications, MSDN, CodePlex,
Prashant Bansode, Scott Barber, Carlos Farre, J.D.Meier, Dennis Rea