Performance Testing Software Systems
A Heuristic Approach
Overview:
Only rarely are sufficient time, resources and skilled individuals available to teams who are developing commercially driven software systems to effectively apply rigorous approaches to performance test that system. In cases where applying rigorous approaches would not be effective, a risk-based, flexible approach to performance testing is needed. Rigorous or not, any approach to performance testing needs to focus on collecting the data necessary both to assist the development team in identifying, prioritizing, and tuning areas of sub-optimal performance and to assist stakeholders in making sound business decisions related to performance risks.
This unique workshop introduces a heuristic approach to Performance Testing Software Systems that focuses on mitigating risks to the business and satisfying end users in commercially driven software development environments. This approach marries the software testing insights of James Bach, Rob Sabourin, Cem Kaner and many other members of the Context-Driven School of software testing with the performance testing insights of Alberto Savoia, Ross Collard, Roland Stens, and the rest of the WOPR (Workshop On Performance and Reliability) community. The approach has a track record of success with regard to adequately mitigating business risk in time to keep pace with the commercial aspects of the project. The Microsoft patterns & practices book Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications by J.D. Meier, Scott Barber, Carlos Farre, Prashant Bansode, and Dennis Rea complements the material presented in this workshop and High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers by Steve Souders compliment the material presented in this workshop.
Because this workshop emphasizes tool agnostic exercises, it is both challenging for experienced performance testers and enlightening for new performance testers. The workshop provides hands-on demonstrations and exercises as well as portable heuristics that you can easily take back to the office and use to train other testers, developers, managers, and executives in some of the most critical and challenging aspects of performance testing software systems.
This workshop is primarily offered as an on-site course, but sometimes we work with organizations that arrange to make it public. Contact us for more information.
