性能测试计划VS测试实践

性能测试计划VS测试实践

URL: http://www.performancecompetence.com/wordpress/2009/11/24/performance-test-plan-vs-test-practice/

译者：zch178                    原作者： Chaitanya M Bhatt

许多人说,面向过程的工作是成功的关键。虽然我非常赞成这个说法,但我总是纳闷为什么人们对于性能测试的7个要点并没有特别关注,而这7个要点能左右性能测试项目的成败。

当一个测试人员被分配到性能测试项目组，项目经理会让他/她做的第一件事就是着手准备测试计划。但在测试计划的准备阶段,测试经理及其属下在准备文档时通常会掉以轻心，文档的大部分内容要么是从以前的项目中复制过来的，要么是从网上找来的任意模板；对测试计划中提到的需求说明不予任何关注就直接转移到下一阶段了。不可否认的是：作为公司流程标准中的必须项，测试计划通常只流于形式；因此它从来没有真正用于连接项目的执行。

我想说的是，用来准备测试计划的时间是整个项目实施期间非常有价值的部分。但不幸的是，所有这些多半都只是在理论上说说，很少用于实践。因此测试人员通常不会把测试活动和测试计划紧密的结合到一起，因为每个测试计划的实施都会受与此过程相关的费用影响，而且他们认为测试计划会延缓测试活动。

这无疑是一件坏事,但即使你否定了这个项目计划阶段—若测试工程师在项目执行阶段认真遵循性能测试的7个要点，我觉得我们还是能在最后看到希望。

　7个要点:

　　1.知道SLA指的是什么。

　　2.了解真实用户的使用模式。

　　3.知道如何加载服务器。

　　4.知道负荷服务器的最大负荷量。

　　5.明白自动化测试需要包含哪些类型。

　　6.了解你的测试工具以最大化其功能。

　　7.了解你的测试环境。

你只要在脑海中牢牢记住这些要点是专业范畴内的一部分。你既不需要把这些归档，也不用把它们交付客户，你只需要实践。因为最后，客户既不会想知道你的负载测试计划有多好或多坏，也不会因你遵循的标准不同而生气，相反，客户在意的是你提交的结果的准确度和这些统计资料对改善应用程序的性能有多大帮助。相信我，深入了解这些要点的每个方面并认真执行，对得到负载测试的真实结果肯定会有所帮助。

 

############################    原文    ############################

 

Performance test plan VS test practice

Author: Chaitanya M Bhatt

Many people say that process oriented work is the key for success. Even I strongly support that statement but I always wonder why people do not give prominence to those 7 basic quintessential points of performance test activity which can truly make or break a project.

When a resource is allocated to a performance test project the first thing the project manager would ask him/her to do is to start working on preparation of a test plan. But during test plan preparation phase, it is very often seen that test managers and his/her subordinates would heedlessly prepare the document with most of the contents of the document copied from previous projects or from arbitrary template available in the internet and proceed to the next phase without giving any prominence to those requirements/specifications mentioned in the test plan. It is undeniably a known fact that preparation of a test plan is always done as a formality obligated to the company’s process standards (like ISO tick it) and as a consequence this document is never really used in conjunction with project execution.

Time to be invested for a test plan preparation I would say should be a significant part of the total project execution time. But all these facts are unfortunately talked more in theoretical sense and less in professional sense and hence practitioners often fail to strictly bind their activities as per test plan intimidated by the large overhead of process associated with it and also believe that it would slow them down.

This undoubtedly is a bad practice, but even if you negate the project planning phase – I feel we can still expect light in the end of the tunnel if the test engineers incorporates those 7 basic quintessential facets of performance test activity religiously during project execution phase.

The 7 tenets are:
1. Know what the SLA states.
2. Understand the real user usage patterns.
3. Know how to load the server.
4. Know how much to the load server.
5. Know what type of load needs to be induced on the AUT.
6. Know your test tool well to maximize on its capabilities.
7. Know your test environment.

The best part of these tenets is that you just have to make sure they are a part of your consciences in your professional frontier. You need not document these things neither would you have to present it to the client; you just have to practice it. Because in the end, what the client expects is not how good or bad was your load test plan nor would the client be bothered of those different standards that you followed, instead the client would always be more bothered about the degree of accuracy of the result that you have presented to them and how much of help would these statistics be to improve the performance of the application. And trust me knowing each of aspects mentioned in the tenets and acting upon it carefully can definitely help achieve positive outcome of the load test project.