It spikes everyone’s curiosity whenever we talk about Spike Testing in Software Testing. Well, today in this article, we are going to answer all your questions, queries, and confusion about what exactly spike testing is, along with examples, and other important information.
So, to begin with, Spike Testing is a branch of performance testing where the load conditions of software are suddenly increased or decreased. Spike testing is performed to see whether the software can handle such dramatic changes in events/traffic or not. It also helps the developers understand the recovery time that the software requires to come back to its stable form after such drastic changes in user conditions.
What is Spike Testing?
Spike testing is a type of performance testing that is done to validate various software components like speed, scalability, and dependability. It is considered to be a subpart of stress testing where the software’s performance is detected under enhanced or reduced load conditions at a given point in time. The spike test is a good way to identify the weak points of a developing software, an application, or a website. Spike testing is yet another crucial part of the Software Development Life Cycle as it helps understand how exactly will the software respond to completely unprecedented situations, in the future. Just like stress testing, spike testing is also done to evaluate the software’s behavior and determine its recovery time.
The objective of Spike Testing
Unlike load testing or performance testing, the objective of Spike Testing is often misunderstood for stress testing. Though it is a part of the umbrella of stress testing, the objective of Spike Testing is quite different. Let us look into them in detail:
- To check how the software responds to sudden, or drastic changes in its traffic module
- To govern if the software will crash or operate even under unprecedented situations
- To determine the recovery time of a given software
- To identify the weak points of software during the SDLC
Spike Testing Process
- Establishing the Test Environment: A good quality testing process will always have the setting up of the test environment as its first step. In this step, the tester is supposed to identify the objective of the test and accordingly set up the test environment with relevant tools, structure, and scenarios.
- Identifying Extreme Load Conditions: As the second step in the process the extreme load condition must be identified. Extreme load condition refers to the highest number of users that a software can handle at a given point in time.
- Increase Load to Peak: In this step, the load on the system of the software is increased to its peak point. It is done without any prior notice or preparation to observe the system’s behavior.
- Analyzing Performance at Peak Load: In this step, the tester documents the system behavior which is whether it crashes, or keeps functioning under this sudden rise in traffic load.
- Gradual Load Reduction to Zero: Once the documentation is done, the tester then suddenly reduces the load from its peak point to zero. This step is also performed abruptly to examine the system’s behavior.
- Analyzing Performance at Minimal Load: In this step, the tester documents the system behavior which is whether it crashes, or keeps functioning under this sudden drop in traffic load.
- Examining of Performance Graphs: Once all the data has been collected, the tester then moves on to the final step of the process which is performance graph analysis. In this step, the spikes in the system behavior are compared and analyzed.
Example of Spike Testing
There are several ways to perform Spike Testing on software or an application. However, here is a list of a few examples for your understanding:
- An eCommerce platform releasing exclusive deals on Black Friday, Christmas, New Year, etc.
- An entertainment platform broadcasting important sports events like the Football World Cup, Olympics, and more.
- A web platform where a certain piece of content goes viral all of a sudden.
- When a new feature is added to a web application all its users start accessing it at the same time.
- In case there is a power outage or server failure where the users lose access to the software.
Spike Testing Tools
The best Spike testing tools to test a software’s reliability are LoadRunner and Apache JMeter. Here are the reasons why they make the best of all tools out there:
- LoadRunner: It offers a wide bandwidth of protocols, technologies, and application environments to perform a spike test on a software application. It is an efficient tool for identifying common causes of performance issues and predicting the scalability or capability of a software application. It is also very useful in generating detailed reports while performing a test. It also comes with a feature that helps in deployment tracking even after the project has been released for the consumers.
- Apache JMeter: The best thing about this tool is that it is an open-source tool that gives you all the benefits that any software tester requires. It is a multi-purpose tool that is infamously used to test the performance of both static and dynamic resources. It is a JAVA language-based software testing tool that is pretty flexible to perform any kind of load, performance, or functional testing and measure the behavior of developed software. Other than that it comes with a user-friendly GUI that makes it the most popular software testing tool in the town!
Advantages and Disadvantages of Spike Testing
Even though spike tests are important, they usually come with a baggage of advantages and disadvantages. Let’s have a closer look into that in the table below:
| Advantages of Spike Testing | Disadvantages of Spike Testing |
| It helps in building a robust software application can can undergo drastic changes in traffic load without really crashing or shutting off. | The test environment for Spike Testing needs to be built independently and cannot be reused every time. |
| It is a crucial step in ensuring that the software developed is robust, reliable, scalable, and strong. | Since it requires special test cases every time, the process of Spike Testing can be a bit costlier. |
| It identifies the weak points of a software application and prevents the failure of the software in future crises. | Spike tests may worsen the software’s development leading to the whole software development process to be re-done from scratch. |
| It ensures that the software is top-notch before it is released into the marketplace. | However, it is a time-consuming process that can also delay the release date. |
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can understand that Spike Testing helps software developers understand the system behavior under extreme load conditions and the standard issues that pertain if those behaviors are not addressed from the very beginning. Spike testing helps ensure that the software is robust enough to deal with unprecedented situations without causing much inconvenience to the end-users. Therefore, performing spike testing in the initial phases of the software development life cycle is the best way to structure the rest of the software behavior.
By Nilofar Jargela
I am co-founder & CEO at Inevitable Infotech – IT service provider. Established in 2018, Inevitable Infotech is the brainchild of technocrats having over a decade’s experience in building smart IT solutions.
