Glossary

Performance Testing Terms

  • Load Testing - Testing system under expected load
  • Stress Testing - Testing beyond expected load to find limits
  • Soak Testing - Testing at normal load for extended time
  • Spike Testing - Testing sudden traffic surge and recovery

Metrics

  • p95 (95th percentile) - 95% of requests complete within this time
  • p99 (99th percentile) - 99% of requests complete within this time
  • TPS - Transactions per second
  • RPS - Requests per second
  • SLA - Service Level Agreement (performance commitment)

Gatling Concepts

  • Scenario - Sequence of actions a virtual user performs
  • Feeder - Source of data (CSV file, JSON, random generator)
  • Protocol - Configuration for a test (HTTP, Kafka, etc.)
  • Session - Per-user state, variables
  • Assertion - Pass/fail criteria for test
  • Check - Validation of individual response

Load Patterns

  • Constant Load - Steady rate of users/requests
  • Ramp Load - Gradually increasing load
  • Step Load - Discrete increases in load levels
  • Spike Load - Sudden increase then decrease

More Terms

  • Latency - Time from request to response
  • Throughput - Requests/transactions per second
  • Concurrent Users - Virtual users active simultaneously
  • Open Model - Unlimited concurrent users, fixed arrival rate
  • Closed Model - Fixed number of users looping
  • Think-time - Pause simulating user reading time
  • Correlation - Extracting data from one response for next request

Next Steps

→ FAQ: FAQ & Troubleshooting