How To Test for Your Software’s Scalability

As companies develop, they provide services at greater capacities. To achieve new heights, a company needs to improve the quality of the platform behind its success. Several software tests can improve your digital products. Software scalability tests are imperative for any company operating in the digital market.

Scalability testing and performance testing are ways to assess software capabilities. Performance testing focuses on response times and software quality. Scalability testing targets the software’s performance when adding new resources. Continuous testing plays a different role in the development process.

Continuous testing relates to the ongoing testing process. It prioritizes flexibility and agility throughout the testing stage. It refers to tests from the beginning to the end of the development lifecycle. However, as you increase your workload, scalability tests will outline the primary areas of improvement.

This post defines the exact meaning of software scalability testing. We highlight its benefits and how to perform appropriate tests.

What Is Software Scalability Testing?

Software engineers use scalability testing to determine how your software will react and perform with different workloads. This style of testing outlines an app’s ability to scale up or down, which is essential when you need to know whether it will perform well in new environments.

As an application stretches its resources, some system features may decrease. Have you ever seen unusual glitches, hanging websites, and hidden web elements? These are examples of failures that can cause web or software crashes. Such crashes not only inconvenience users, but also hinder the overall user experience.

Companies use scalability tests to avoid losing money from technical problems. Through these tests, engineers will determine how to balance functionality and resources. They will also assess how to handle vast amounts of data. It is also essential to test the number of software processes performed in a given time frame.

Advantages of Scalability Testing

Scalability testing is beneficial to a company for a variety of reasons. Scalability testing enables a company to:

• Assess performance restrictions related to app resources
• Control user experience under specific limits
• Identify future application bottlenecks and complications
• Assess performance on different hardware
• Save money from identifying difficulties early

Who Performs Scalability Tests?

Some companies have a center of excellence (CoE) that takes advantage of different testing processes. CoE's are capability centers run by experts. They can drive scalability and performance tests on your software. They operate around critical technologies and processes to improve efficiency.

The benefits of center of excellence strategies impact how software engineers work. The CoE improves communication across separate teams. It can be a bridge that connects unrelated groups at the office. It also identifies areas to maximize company resources. 

Scalability Testing Characteristics

Scalability tests have distinguishable characteristics. They focus on issues relating to:

• Memory usage
• CPU usage
• Network and bandwidth usage
• Load times
• Response times
• Requests processed

Memory Use

Engineers test a software’s memory consumption when conducting scalability tests. Your software can overload the hardware’s memory capacity when making excessive server requests. Make sure your application is making necessary server-side calls and avoid using redundant loops and follow good programming practices.

CPU Usage

Like memory usage, Central Processing Unit (CPU) usage plays a role in the performance of your application. The CPU enables a PC to interact with all of its applications and programs. Optimize your code to ensure smooth CPU performance results. 

Network and Bandwidth Usage

Computers and programs transmit data across computer and internet networks. An application should perform and keep transmitted data to a minimum. You want network use to be low without sacrificing performance. 

Load Times

It is vital to monitor website and application load times as loading times impact user experience. Optimize your images, videos, and all other on-page elements to speed up the rendering process. You want your websites and applications to load in the shortest time possible.

Response Times

Response times reflect an application’s performance under load. In the testing phase, you can increase the number of requests performed. By increasing the number of requests, you can see when the application begins to respond slowly.

Requests Processed

You can assess an application’s throughput during the scalability testing phase. Throughput tests will show the number of processes an application can process at any given time. Throughput can be valuable when testing your UCaaS (unified communications as a service) platform.

How to Perform Scalability Tests

There are different approaches to scalability testing. Tests revolve around horizontal and vertical scaling approaches. The horizontal approach focuses on hardware, and adding more physical machines to add resources. The vertical approach focuses on maximizing internal resources, including the CPU and RAM. 

To perform suitable scalability tests, carry out the steps outlined below.

Find Repeatable Processes

Tests need to focus on repeatable issues, although, some testing complications may be anomalous. As a result, fixing these kinds of bugs is complex. Repeatable processes will help your engineers outline how an application runs overall. 

Use Appropriate Testing Tools

There are several scalability testing tools available on the market. The ideal platform will depend on a company’s specific needs. Testers will need a software package that can handle different environments and circumstances. Some testing tools will include:

• LoadNinja
• Neo Load
• Load Impact

Prepare a Testing Environment

Create a testing environment that replicates production. You may want to add video telepresence features to your communications platform. To perform realistic tests, you should create load testing environments. You can also make hardware considerations for your tests. 

Create and Run Different Test Scenarios

A company can create a capable BPM task management platform as a service. Engineers can create several test conditions that evaluate the platform’s performance. You can create virtual users to test the platform’s load and functionality. After creating several test conditions, run your tests and check the results.

Make Improvements

Make revisions and corrections according to the resulting data. The results will highlight the areas where an application may perform well or struggle with certain data-driven aspects. With the data available, your engineers can improve the performance of your platform and provide your customer base with an overall more satisfying experience.

Conclusion

In today’s digital markets, it is vital that your web and software applications perform well. Scalability and performance tests are essential to the success of your applications. Many of the best RPA tools reflect several iterations of software testing. 

You need to perform scalability tests if you want your applications to meet the requirements of your target customers. If you have not adopted scalability testing in your development process, you should. It will help you build better applications and plan for future successes.