VOLUME TESTING is a type of Software Testing, where the software is subjected to a huge volume of data. It is also referred to as flood testing. Volume testing is done to analyze the system performance by increasing the volume of data in the database.
With the help of Volume testing, the impact on response time and system behavior can be studied when exposed to a high volume of data.
For example, testing the music site behavior when there are millions of user to download the song.
Benefits of Volume Testing
By identifying load issues, a lot of money can be saved which otherwise will be spent on application maintenance.
It helps in a quicker start for scalability plans
Early identification of bottlenecks
It assures your system is now capable of real-world usage
Why to do Volume Testing
The objective of performing the volume testing is to
Check system performance with increasing volumes of data in the database
To identify the problem that are likely to occur with large amount of data
To figure out the point at which the stability of the system degrades
Volume Testing will help to identify the capacity of the system or application - normal and heavy volume
How to do Volume Testing
In volume testing, following things need to be tested
Test to check if there is any data loss
Check the system's response time
Check if the data is stored correctly or not
Verify if the data is overwritten without any notification
Check for warning and error messages, whether it comes at all for volume problems
Check whether high volume data affects the speed of processing
Does system have the necessary memory resources
Does volume test executed on the whole system
Is there any risk if data volume is greater than specified
Is there any guarantee that no larger date volume will occur than specified
Best practices for high volume testing
The best practices for high-volume testing are
Stop all servers and check all logs
Before the load test manually execute the application scenario
For most useful results stagger the number of users
To overcome license constraints, balance think time
Be cautious with the new build
Analyze the use case for improvement once a baseline has been established
A repetition of particular parts of volume testing becomes inevitable in case there is a performance bottleneck
