Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
Note - The patterns & practices Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications is now live at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb924375.aspx.
- J.D. Meier, Carlos Farre, Prashant Bansode, Scott Barber, Dennis Rea.

Welcome to the Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications! This guide shows you an end-to-end approach for implementing performance testing. Whether you are new to performance testing, or looking for ways to improve your current performance testing approach, you will find insights that you can tailor for your specific scenarios. This guide is related to our Performance Testing Guidance Project.
Why We Wrote This Guide
We wrote this guide to accomplish the following:
- To consolidate real-world lessons learned around performance testing.
- To present a roadmap for end-to-end performance testing.
- To narrow the gap between state of the art and state of the practice.
Features of This Guide
- Approach for performance testing. The guide provides an approach that organizes performance testing into logical units to help you incrementally adopt performance testing throughout your application life cycle.
- Principles and practices. These serve as the foundation for the guide and provide a stable basis for recommendations. They also reflect successful approaches used in the field.
- Processes and methodologies. These provide steps for managing and conducting performance testing. For simplification and tangible results, they are broken down into activities with inputs, outputs, and steps. You can use the steps as a baseline or to help you evolve your own process.
- Life cycle approach. The guide provides end-to-end guidance on managing performance testing throughout your application life cycle, to reduce risk and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Modular. Each chapter within the guide is designed to be read independently. You do not need to read the guide from beginning to end to benefit from it. Use the parts you need.
- Holistic. The guide is designed with the end in mind. If you do read the guide from beginning to end, it is organized to fit together in a comprehensive way. The guide, in its entirety, is better than the sum of its parts.
- Subject matter expertise. The guide exposes insight from various experts throughout Microsoft and from customers in the field.
Parts
- Part 1, Introduction to Performance Testing
- Part II, Exemplar Performance Testing Approaches
- Part III, Identify the Test Environment
- Part IV, Identify Performance Acceptance Criteria
- Part V, Plan and Design Tests
- Part VI, Execute Tests
- Part VII, Analyze Results and Report
- Part VIII, Performance Testing Techniques
Forewords
Chapters
Introduction Part 1, Introduction to Performance Testing
- Chapter 1 – Fundamentals of Web Application Performance Testing
- Chapter 2 – Types of Performance Testing
- Chapter 3 – Risks Addressed Through Performance Testing
Part II, Exemplar Performance Testing Approaches
- Chapter 4 – Web Application Performance Testing Core Activities
- Chapter 5 – Coordinating Performance Testing with an Iteration-Based Process
- Chapter 6 – Managing an Agile Performance Test Cycle
- Chapter 7 – Managing the Performance Test Cycle in a Regulated (CMMI) Environment
Part III, Identify the Test Environment
Part IV, Identify Performance Acceptance Criteria
- Chapter 9 – Determining Performance Testing Objectives
- Chapter 10 – Quantifying End-User Response Time Goals
- Chapter 11 – Consolidating Various Types of Performance Acceptance Criteria
Part V, Plan and Design Tests
Part VI, Execute Tests
Part VII, Analyze Results and Report
- Chapter 15 – Key Mathematic Principles for Performance Testers
- Chapter 16 – Performance Test Reporting Fundamentals
Part VIII, Performance-Testing Techniques