WHY LOAD TESTING SHOULD BE IN EVERYONE’S CHECKLIST BEFORE LAUNCHING THEIR SITE
Load testing is something that every website owner should do before a launch. However, only about half of the website owners actually do it.
Load testing is test that you perform to check how your site is doing. It’s also a way to see how it looks from your audience’s perspective. What is even more important is how to do it. Don’t just put out a clone version of your site and hope for the best. You need to test the original production side of things. If the production side is not looking good, what makes you think the rest of the site will?
Here are the top 3 reasons why performing a load test before launching your site is so important.
1). You will see first-hand what the results are. The results will also be presented to you in a genuine way, not a “botched or manipulated” way. If your results are manipulated in any way, how can you know what is not working? The load testing will provide the genuine results. This way you know what needs to be fixed, versus what doesn’t need to be fixed. Fixing things now will only go to improve the end goal when launching the site.
2). It will give you a detailed look at the actual costs going into everything, including the production. This way you can get a look at what needs to be cut and what does not. Some things will need to be slashed and burned before the site launch. This will only serve to help your long-term goals. Load testing is going to help you to decide where your money should actually be going. Load testing can also help you test APIs using services like LoadView to ensure that your API doesn’t go down. It’s important to be able to test both SOAP and REST APIs in order to get the full picture of testing.
3). This test will also help your out with your firewall. You will see how effective your firewall is. You will see where the improvements need to be made, if any at all. Your firewall is an essential part to your site. It’s going to help keep out the “undesirables”. Anything can happen when you go to launch a site. It’s best to make sure everything is in tact.
Jaxson Gibbs's Server Performance & Testing Blog 