The Complete Guide to Continuous Performance Testing

Performance issues continue to plague companies, causing revenue losses, customer churn and reputation damage. A study by Aberdeen Group found that on average, companies lose 13% of their customers due to poor website performance. Yet, 46% of companies do not even have formal performance testing processes.

Continuous performance testing is the key to avoiding these pitfalls. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore:

• What continuous performance testing is
• Detailed overview of performance testing
• The top benefits continuous performance testing provides
• Common challenges teams face and expert recommendations to overcome them
• Step-by-step guide to implementing continuous performance testing
• Tips for integrating it into your CI/CD pipelines
• Tools, metrics and best practices for success

Let‘s get started.

What is Continuous Performance Testing?

Continuous performance testing is the practice of automatically executing performance tests continuously throughout the development lifecycle as part of the CI/CD process. It aims to shift performance testing left, integrate it into coding workflows, and provide fast feedback to developers on the performance implications of code changes.

This contrasts with traditional performance testing which involves executing manual or automated performance tests just before major releases. The following table summarizes some of the key differences:

Need for Continuous Testing

Modern software delivery demands continuous performance testing. Consider that:

• Teams are releasing software faster than ever via CI/CD with little time for extensive pre-production performance testing.
• Microservices architectures and distributed systems make it harder to performance test the entire system.
• Traffic spikes from marketing campaigns, new features etc. can overwhelm systems.
• Integration issues between components have a higher chance of occurring.

Continuous performance testing addresses these realities by making performance testing an always-on activity. Issues surface much earlier when they are cheaper to fix.

"Continuous performance testing is no longer optional. It is a must-have for any team practicing CI/CD. The volume and frequency of releases these days demands that you test continuously." – Janna DeVylder, Performance Engineer at Rainforest QA

Performance Testing Concepts

Before diving into continuous performance testing, let‘s quickly cover some key performance testing concepts:

• Load testing – Testing application behavior under real-world expected load. E.g. 250 concurrent users.
• Stress testing – Testing behavior under extreme loads -often 10-100x more than normal – to force bottlenecks.
• Scalability testing – Testing ability to handle increasing load.
• Spike testing – Testing ability to handle sudden traffic spikes.
• Soak testing – Testing ability to sustain continuous expected load over time.

These help evaluate different aspects of system performance like response times, resource utilization, uptime etc.

Now let‘s see why continuous performance testing is highly beneficial.

Key Benefits of Continuous Performance Testing

Adopting continuous performance testing provides many advantages:

Early Detection of Performance Issues

Continuous testing during development means performance problems surface much earlier when they are easier and cheaper to fix. Industry data shows that fixing issues in production can cost 50-100x more than fixing them during coding.

By integrating performance tests into commit workflows, any unintentional performance regressions caused by code changes are caught immediately when developing locally. Teams don‘t need to wait for dedicated testing/staging environments.

Faster Feedback Loops

Developers get immediate feedback when they run performance tests as part of commits. They can analyze results, identify bottlenecks, and fix issues rapidly without waiting for downstream testing.

Fixing performance issues can take many trial-and-error iterations. Rapid feedback loops accelerate this process.

Reduced Costs

Issues that make it to production incur high costs related to fires, rollbacks, war rooms etc. Continuously finding and fixing performance problems earlier avoids these overheads.

Post-production rework also delays deploying new features and fixes. Continuous testing reduces this opportunity cost.

Improved User Experience

Performance issues directly hurt user experience e.g. slow response times. Proactively catching them before they reach users is critical for CX.

This prevents realization issues like struggling to handle actual production loads.

Increased Efficiency

Automating performance testing eliminates slow and effort-intensive manual testing freeing up teams to focus on value-add tasks.

Tools like Neotys make it easy to write automated performance test scripts that can run unattended as part of CI/CD.

Better Quality

Applications are thoroughly tested for performance throughout development leading to higher quality. Continuous testing also instills a performance-focused culture.

Risk Reduction

Continuous testing reduces the risks of performance issues making it to production and impacting customers.

This built-in protection boosts team confidence in releases.

Clearly, the benefits make a compelling case for continuous performance testing. But what challenges can teams face when implementing it?

Challenges with Continuous Performance Testing

While the benefits are significant, continuous performance testing also presents some real challenges:

Test Environment Setup

Setting up and maintaining test environments that realistically simulate production systems under load can be complex and require significant infrastructure.

Tip: Leverage managed cloud-based load testing services like BlazeMeter to avoid infrastructure headaches.

Test Data Management

Generating, managing and masking realistic test data is difficult – especially for large, complex data systems. Without real-world test data, results may not reflect actual behavior.

Tip: Consider test data management solutions like CA Test Data Manager.

Test Maintenance Overhead

Continuously updating performance tests and keeping them in sync with changing application code involves significant overhead. Tests can break or become inaccurate.

Tip: Adopt behavior-driven automated test frameworks like Cucumber that improve test resilience.

CI/CD Integration Challenges

Integrating new performance testing tools and processes into existing CI/CD pipelines can be complex and needs solid DevOps expertise.

Tip: When evaluating tools, assess how easily they integrate with your CI/CD environments.

Lack of Standards

Unlike functional testing, there are no well-defined standards for performance testing methodologies, tools, metrics etc. in CI/CD contexts.

Tip: Align with thought leaders like Gartner for emerging best practices.

Analysis Paralysis

Continuous testing produces vast volumes of performance data. Analyzing this to gain insights can be challenging without expertise.

Tip: Adopt smart AIOps-driven analytics platforms like Moogsoft to ease analysis.

Now that we‘ve covered the fundamentals, let‘s look at recommendations for implementing continuous performance testing.

Best Practices for CI/CD Integration

To effectively implement continuous performance testing, here are key best practices:

Define Clear Performance Objectives

Be clear about what aspects of performance you are testing – speed, scalability, stability etc. This drives tool selection, test design and metrics.

Integrate Testing Early

Introduce performance testing early in development, not as an afterthought. This surfaces issues promptly when easier to diagnose.

Automate The Pipeline

Complete automation of test execution and reporting is crucial. Manual testing does not scale for continuous integration.

Establish Rigorous Metrics

Define quantitative, objective performance metrics like response times, error rates, concurrent users supported etc.

Validate Test Environments

Ensure your performance test environments accurately reflect production infrastructure, configurations and data volumes.

Choose Tools That Integrate With CI/CD

When evaluating tools, ensure they integrate seamlessly with your CI/CD platforms like Jenkins, Spinnaker etc.

Set Performance Gates

Set pass/fail gates for key metrics that determine whether a build can be deployed to production. For example:

Average response time < 500 ms  [PASS]
Concurrent users supported > 5000 [FAIL] 

Compare Results Across Builds

Track performance metrics over time and across builds to quickly identify any regressions.

Involve Developers Early

Engage developers early when implementing performance testing to foster shared ownership between dev and QA.

Continuously Tune And Optimize

Use results to continuously fine-tune tests, environments, metrics etc. Treat it as an evolving capability.

CI/CD Implementation Guide

Let‘s go through a sample workflow for implementing continuous performance testing:

Step 1 – Define Goals

Start by defining your performance testing goals based on critical user journeys. This will determine the scenarios you test.

Step 2 – Setup Environments

Setup a production-replica performance testing environment. Cloud-based services like AWS can allow easy scaling.

Step 3 – Implement Automated Tests

Implement automated load test scripts that mimic real-world usage based on goals. Open source tools like JMeter or Gatling are great options here.

Step 4 – Integrate With CI/CD

Integrate the automated tests into your CI/CD pipelines. Most tools provide plugins for CI/CD platforms.

Step 5 – Configure CI/CD Jobs

Configure CI jobs to run scheduled performance tests on every code commit and deployment.

Step 6 – Set Pass/Fail Criteria

Set pass/fail criteria for key metrics based on performance goals. Tests must pass for builds to progress.

Step 7 – Analyze Reports

After test runs, review automated reports showing metrics trends and detailed bottleneck analysis.

Step 8 – Track Regressions

Compare metrics across builds to quickly identify performance regressions due to code changes.

Step 9 – Diagnose And Fix Issues

Work with devs to diagnose failures and fix bottlenecks. Rerun tests to validate fixes.

Step 10 – Retune Process

Continuously improve scripts, metrics, processes based on learnings. Performance testing is an iterative process.

By following these steps, you can start realizing the benefits of continuous performance testing on your CI/CD pipeline.

Key Takeaways

Here are some key takeaways from this guide:

• Continuous performance testing brings enormous benefits – catch issues early, better CX, lower risks etc. It is a must-have for CI/CD.
• However, it also introduces challenges like test maintenance, data management and integration complexity.
• Having well-defined objectives, automated pipelines, rigorous metrics and shared team ownership is crucial.
• Cloud-based performance testing services and AIOps platforms help overcome many implementation challenges.
• When implemented properly, continuous performance testing becomes a key competitive advantage allowing teams to deliver fantastic user experiences.

While it represents a shift left for testing, the payoff from adopting continuous performance testing is game-changing. Teams will boost customer satisfaction, reduce risk, cut costs and accelerate releases. The time to embrace it is now.

Hopefully this guide offered you a comprehensive overview of continuous performance testing and how to successfully implement it. Please check out the resources below to learn more. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions!