When a software package’s development project has become fairly complete and has all specified functionality, it is time to conduct Load Testing. This is because it is only with a thorough amount of stress testing that a particular build of all the programs in a suite can be certified as being a valid release candidate. This is not the more basic unit testing and overall functionality testing. That is all done well before this final software development step in the Quality Assurance (QA) process.

Remaining Objective in Load Testing

The resource demands on a particular application can never be fully anticipated, so this type of testing thrashes the app until it breaks. If the load level is not high enough for the software to be accepted for release, then it must be fixed. More junior software development output often produces stress testing failures that actually warrant a redesign, losing valuable time. This is why it is so important to value keeping software developers who have many years of experience, not discriminating against them just because they are older. And most importantly, never allow your developers to do the testing. The test engineers must be separate and objective.

Of course, such load testing can only ever attempt to match anticipated worst-case stress conditions with testing that emulates known, logged, real-world situations. This is why no matter how well tested a new software product is, there will be times that unanticipated synergy between apps, apps and the Operating System, and a target app running simultaneously with other commonly present apps, can cause catastrophic failures out in the field. A really well designed and scientifically conducted stress test can alleviate a lot of headaches in this regard.

Stress Testing HIPAA Servers

When stress testing a HIPAA server, test engineers must sanitize the data, removing Protected Health Information (PHI), and standardize the structured test data inputs. It is recommended to have a compliant third party run your load tests if operating under HIPAA regulations. Many HIPAA compliant web hosts offer licensed engineers on-demand to run your testing as outlined here.

Experience + Best-in-Class Load Testing Tools = Success

One of the problems less-experienced software developers often make is trying to have their software stress tested well before it is time. There is no efficiency in that. Nothing will actually mean anything until all the feature set is implemented and there are no interface issues, no obvious performance issues, and the regular regression testing proves it is time. Don’t make that mistake and you won’t be sorry down the proverbial line!

In terms of tools that you can use to perform load testing, you can go two ways: free or paid. One of the most popular tools is Apache JMeter which can be installed on your server in order to perform a load test. If you’re looking for an external tool, Load-View is another option. As to which tool is right for you situation, only you can decide that.