In most of the performance testing approach, the ‘Think Time’ metric is taken for granted. We should understand the importance of think time before deciding the test strategy.
What is a Think Time? Think time is the time taken by the users to think or to navigate
to different pages in the application.
Depending upon the application context, the think time would vary. Its not advisable to have the default think time for all applications under testing. For the user registration page containing 5 mandatory fields, the use might take 15-20 seconds on an average. Notice the words “15-20 seconds on an average”. You can’t say that all the users would take exactly a specific think time. It would definitely vary based on each of the users. So, always make a point that whenever you run the load test, apply a randomization factor on the configured think time. Say if the think time in the script is 10 seconds between each of the transactions, configure the load test tool to use a randomized think time of 80% to 120% of the value available in the script.
As we are interested to measure the response time of the transaction (user defined actions), care should be taken to place the think time outside the transaction points. (i.e.) the think time should not be placed between the start & end of the transaction.
Most of the testers doing the performance testing don’t understand that by changing the think time, we can simulate the load of large number of users though we run the test for less number of users. To illustrate, consider the following example. Five tests were conducted with 5 virtual users simultaneously accessing the application. In each of the test, the think time is the only metric which was changed. Observer, the Hits/sec generated from the client side & Throughput (the number of transactions passed /sec).
Though the number of users hitting the server is same, the think time creates a huge impact on the server load. We need to understand the fact that decreasing the think time will increase the server load & vice versa. Always try to model the real time scenario & identify the performance figures. Never forget that we can play around with the server load just by changing the think time.
What is a Think Time? Think time is the time taken by the users to think or to navigate
to different pages in the application.
Depending upon the application context, the think time would vary. Its not advisable to have the default think time for all applications under testing. For the user registration page containing 5 mandatory fields, the use might take 15-20 seconds on an average. Notice the words “15-20 seconds on an average”. You can’t say that all the users would take exactly a specific think time. It would definitely vary based on each of the users. So, always make a point that whenever you run the load test, apply a randomization factor on the configured think time. Say if the think time in the script is 10 seconds between each of the transactions, configure the load test tool to use a randomized think time of 80% to 120% of the value available in the script.
As we are interested to measure the response time of the transaction (user defined actions), care should be taken to place the think time outside the transaction points. (i.e.) the think time should not be placed between the start & end of the transaction.
Most of the testers doing the performance testing don’t understand that by changing the think time, we can simulate the load of large number of users though we run the test for less number of users. To illustrate, consider the following example. Five tests were conducted with 5 virtual users simultaneously accessing the application. In each of the test, the think time is the only metric which was changed. Observer, the Hits/sec generated from the client side & Throughput (the number of transactions passed /sec).
Though the number of users hitting the server is same, the think time creates a huge impact on the server load. We need to understand the fact that decreasing the think time will increase the server load & vice versa. Always try to model the real time scenario & identify the performance figures. Never forget that we can play around with the server load just by changing the think time.
Also, dont forget to use Little's law, N = X . (R+Z) to check whats the actual load on the system for the test which you are running.
Very nice sir
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