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* Capacity planning testing. Capacity testing is complementary to load testing and it determines your server's ultimate failure point, whereas load testing monitors results at various levels of load and traffic patterns. You perform capacity testing in conjunction with capacity planning. You use capacity planning to plan for future growth, such as an increased user base or increased volume of data. For example, to accommodate future loads you need to know how many additional resources (such as CPU, RAM, disk space, or network bandwidth) are necessary to support future usage levels. Capacity testing helps you identify a scaling strategy to determine whether you should scale up or scale out.

* Load testing. Use load testing to verify application behavior under normal and peak load conditions. This allows you to verify that your application can meet your desired performance objectives; these performance objectives are often specified in a service level agreement. It enables you to measure response times, throughput rates, resource utilization levels, and to identify your application's breaking point, assuming that breaking point occurs below the peak load condition.

* Smoke testing. Determine if your application can successfully perform all the operations under normal load condition for short duration of time

* Stress testing. Use stress testing to evaluate your application's behavior when it is pushed beyond the normal or peak load conditions. The goal of stress testing is to unearth application bugs that surface only under high load conditions. These can include such things as synchronization issues, race conditions, and memory leaks. Stress testing enables you to identify your application's weak points, and how it behaves under extreme load conditions.

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Boneyard

* Load Test A performance test focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the product under test when subjected to workload models and load volumes anticipated during production operations. - Scott Barber
* Stress Test A performance test focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the product under test when subjected to workload models, and load volumes beyond those anticipated during production operations. Stress tests may also include tests focused on determining or validating performance characteristics of the production under test when subjected to workload models and load volumes when the product is subjected to other stressful conditions, such as limited memory, insufficient disk space or server failure. - Scott Barber

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