1.2.1 Workload

Workload is the amount of work that a site either handles or needs to handle. For example, this work can be due to shoppers browsing or placing orders, or business analysts administering the content offered by the site.

In performance testing or load testing, this refers to the simulated workload that mimics the anticipated production load. That is, it is supposed to mimic both the actions of multiple shoppers or the type of incoming user traffic accessing the site, as well as a distribution of various operations possible. Inherently, performance testing implies testing concurrency of all these operations being done by various shoppers or users.

The workload defines how the performance of a system is evaluated. A workload should have the following characteristics:

• Measurable: A metric that can be quantified, such as throughput and response time.

• Reproducible: The same results can be reproduced when the same test is executed multiple times.

• Static: The same results can be achieved no matter for how long you execute the run.

• Representative: The workload realistically represents the stress to the system under normal operating considerations.

xxxx