Unix® System Management Primer Plus

Load Testing

Load tests measure the performance of a system under stress. These tests try to mimic the worst of conditions the system might experience in production, and they attempt to answer the following questions:

• Can the system function normally within the required performance specifications?

• At what point does the system not meet the requirements?

• Does load increase linearly or geometrically as you add stress to the system?

Determining Load Test Parameters

A load test stresses a system and monitors its performance under this load. The numbers a load test reports back to you mean nothing, however, without context. In general, you must structure the load test with the following specifications to obtain valuable results:

• The mechanism used to ...