Load Testing and Capacity Planning¶

System behavior under load differs qualitatively from behavior at rest; performance must be validated under realistic conditions before production exposure

Tension Addressed¶

Correctness vs. Speed

Recognizable As¶

Load tests, stress tests, soak tests, capacity planning, performance baselines, regression detection

Canonical Sources¶

Molyneaux, "The Art of Application Performance Testing" (2014); Gregg, "Systems Performance" (2020)

Transfers To¶

Infrastructure planning, capacity management, release engineering

Sub-concepts: - Stress Testing: Finding breaking points by exceeding expected load - Soak Testing: Finding degradation over time under sustained load - Performance Regression: Detecting when changes make things slower