As we’ve entered 2024, business leaders across the globe are looking to set up their business objectives. One such objective is digital transformation. As per Statista’s projections, the worldwide expenditure on digital transformation is expected to reach $3.4 trillion by 2026. Markets and Markets suggests that the digital transformation market size will grow at a rate of 19.1%, from $521.5 billion in 2021 to $127.5 billion in 2026. All these statistics suggest that digital transformation is the next big thing. Since digital transformation is different for every organization, here we are focusing on the use case of cloud migration. We’ll highlight how performance testing can be a critical aspect of digital transformation.

What is performance testing

Enterprise performance testing evaluates the speed, responsiveness, stability, and overall performance of a software application. It investigates how software performs under expected and peak load conditions. Key aspects that are monitored under performance testing are

Responsiveness: How quickly an application reacts to user actions and requests.

Stability: Its ability to maintain consistent performance under varying loads without crashing or slowing down.

Speed: How fast an enterprise application completes tasks or transactions.

Scalability: Whether it can handle increasing numbers of users or transactions without performance degradation.

Reliability: Its ability to function consistently and without errors under stress.

The Curious Case of Oracle Cloud Migration

As mentioned earlier, the migration to the cloud stands out as a significant goal in digital transformation. According to Mordor Intelligence, it is estimated at USD 232.51 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 806.41 billion by 2029.

This is also a significant step for organizations that have been using Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) on-premises solution. Performance testing plays a critical role while migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). With the help of performance testing, you can ensure that your Oracle Cloud environment is properly configured to the size and complexity of your existing on-premises environment.

It ensures that your Oracle Cloud environment has the capacity to handle the demands of your users and your data. During performance testing, Oracle Cloud applications are subjected to different load scenarios to monitor their performance.

Best Practices for Performance Testing

Define Clear Objectives: To achieve business objectives, it is critical that you clearly outline the performance objectives and set realistic success criteria for the testing process. Simply put, your testing efforts should be properly aligned with your business objectives.

Start Early in the Development Lifecycle: Shift testing left will help you detect bugs in the early stages of development. This allows you to address potential performance issues before they become critical.

Use Realistic Test Scenarios: To generate accurate results, it is necessary that the test scenarios should closely mimic real-world usage patterns and conditions, including expected user loads, data volumes, and transaction complexities.

Include Various Performance Testing Types: Different types of performance tests – load tests, stress tests, endurance tests, and scalability tests should be conducted.

Emphasize Scalability Testing: To validate system’s ability to handle increased loads, tests should be scaled horizontally or vertically as needed.

Monitor Key Performance Metrics: Key performance indicators – response time, throughput, resource utilization, and error rates should be defined and monitored.

Isolate and Replicate Production Environment: Test environment should mirror the production environment as closely as possible. This will ensure accurate performance results.

Use Performance Testing Tools: Leverage specialized performance testing tools to automate test execution, collect performance data, and analyze results efficiently.

Since you’re now aware of the performance testing best practices, let’s introduce Opkey. It is a no-code performance test automation platform that can replicate your production environment with its self-configuring engine. Opkey allows you to use functional tests to perform performance testing. Leveraging Opkey’s millions of virtual agents, you can easily monitor the performance of applications and report any ambiguity with its robust reporting capabilities.