Software performance testing based on workload characterization

A major concern of most businesses is their ability to meet customers' performance requirements. This paper describes our workload-based approach to performance testing, and includes a case study that demonstrates the application of this approach to a large, industrial software system. For this system, we collected data in the field to determine the current production usage, and then assessed the performance of the system under both current workloads, and those likely to be encountered in the future. This led to the identification of a software bottleneck, which, had it occurred in the field rather than in the test lab, would have likely had significant consequences.