Stresstest

Stresstest, commonly written as stress test, refers to a form of performance testing designed to determine how a system behaves under extreme conditions. The goal is to identify the breaking point, failure modes, and recovery characteristics when demand exceeds normal operational capacity or when components are degraded.

Stresstests are applied to software applications, web services, databases, networks, and hardware. They help validate robustness, reliability, and scalability, and support capacity planning and risk assessment.

The testing process typically includes defining objectives, modeling realistic and extreme workloads, setting up a controlled test environment, executing the test with ramped or abrupt load, and monitoring system metrics until failure or stabilization. After the test, results are analyzed to locate bottlenecks, confirm recovery procedures, and guide remediation.

Common types include load testing, endurance (soak) testing, spike testing, and scalability testing. Load testing measures performance under expected and peak loads; endurance tests check stability over extended periods; spike testing evaluates reaction to sudden surges; scalability testing explores how well the system handles increasing load with available resources.

Key metrics include response time, latency, throughput, error rate, resource utilization (CPU, memory, I/O), and saturation points. Observed failure modes may include crashes, data corruption, or degraded functionality, followed by recovery times and rollback behavior.

Tools used for stresstesting range from open-source options like Apache JMeter and Locust to commercial solutions such as Gatling and LoadRunner. Tests should be repeatable, version-controlled, and reportable, conducted with proper change management to minimize business impact.