A team preparing to launch an application needs to know what happens when many customers use it at once. Load testing generates traffic that mimics customer activity, then checks how the system behaves under normal and anticipated peak loads. It helps reveal the application’s operating capacity and what starts to degrade as demand rises. section 10.1.4 section 12.2.2
Use the results to ask practical questions:
- Can the system handle expected peak traffic, or does it need to scale further? section 12.2.2
- Where are the bottlenecks or single points of failure, and which element causes degradation? section 10.1.4 section 12.2.2
Load versus performance
Imagine one million customers downloading a short video. The simulated customers provide a heavy-use scenario. Measuring latency, responsiveness, and download speed under that load focuses on performance testing. Load testing asks the related capacity question: can the system handle traffic at that scale? section 12.2.2
Load testing complements checks of whether software meets specifications or works for users. Before release, ask what peak traffic is anticipated and whether testing has exposed a capacity limit or failure point worth addressing. section 10.1.4 section 12.2.2
