Efforts Required for Performance Engineering of a Web Application

Abstract

New Port group research states that 52% of the Web applications fail to scale-they don't perform acceptably under real-world usage.
Performance testing is normally considered as a last stage in the development lifecycle. In some cases it is taken up as a reaction to
customer complaints. This approach normally results in significant design changes in the final stages ora trade-off with the functionality or robustness of the application. Considering the factors like shorter delivery cycles, high costs o f rework, competition etc., it has become necessary that the performance testing activities are properly planned to ensure a strict adherence to the customer requirements. Testing should hence be considered as an activity that needs to run in parallel to the design and development activities. All these need proper planning to be done and necessary resources allocated for performance engineering right at the beginning of the SDLC. This paper describes the need for performance testing, what all is done as part of the exercise, what all resources are required and ball-park % o f total SDLC effort required for performance testing. Currently there is no methodology available for estimating the effort required for Performance testing o f web applications. The ballpark estimate for performance testing in this paper can be used as a starting point for the same.