Behavior-driven Load Testing Using Contextual Knowledge — Approach and Experiences

Load testing is widely considered a meaningful technique for performance quality assurance. However, empirical studies reveal that in practice, load testing is not applied systematically, due to the sound expert knowledge required to specify, implement, and execute load tests. Our Behavior-driven Load Testing (BDLT) approach eases load test specification and execution for users with no or little expert knowledge. It allows a user to describe a load test in a template-based natural language and to rely on an automated framework to execute the test. Utilizing the system's contextual knowledge such as workload-influencing events, the framework automatically determines the workload and test configuration. We investigated the applicability of our approach in an industrial case study, where we were able to express four load test concerns using BDLT and received positive feedback from our industrial partner. They understood the BDLT definitions well and proposed further applications, such as the usage for software quality acceptance criteria.