Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
their sites free of cost to their users. They get their revenue from advertising. An
increase in the number of users means an increase in advertising revenue. So,
from a business perspective, it is essential that the performance of their sites be
good even when the load on their servers is huge. Generally, if any page requires
more than 10 seconds to load, then the performance of the application is consid-
ered poor.
To make sure that their site performance is good, they need to test their site for
performance. Performance bottlenecks could be at user interface, database, server
memory, server processor speed, or any networking component at the Web server
farm consisting of server computers, application interfaces, network routers, and
so on.
Let us look at some of the issues involved in performance testing:
◾
User interface
—If the software developers have used big-file-sized images or
any user interface components, then they take time to load in the page. This
results in poor performance. If poor performance is encountered, then the
developers should replace these heavy components with light components to
improve performance.
Database queries
◾
—If the software developers have used queries that take a
long time to fetch data and show results, then this results in poor performance.
The software developers should have a good knowledge of what kind of query
is being fired for any user action and how to tune database queries for optimal
performance. If database queries are the bottlenecks for poor application per-
formance, then they should be tuned further to improve performance.
2.10
Security Testing
With advancements in technology, hackers and data thieves also have access to
tools to intrude into secure sites and steal personal and financial data. They use
phishing, personification, Trojan horses, and viruses to attack users' personal com-
puters or servers and steal data.
As Internet use continues to increase, these threats will keep increasing in the
future. Companies and users alike will keep taking advantage of the Internet. A
user can access his bank account and do transactions using his home computer. He
does not have to go to the bank branch to do these transactions. Similarly the bank
will have to provide less service at the branch as the number of customers visiting
the branch declines substantially. This saves a lot of money for the bank. So the
Internet provides benefits to both the bank and its customers.
Portals and Internet sites must provide thorough checks to ensure that these
thefts do not happen. These applications must be tested thoroughly to ensure that
safety mechanisms provided in these applications work properly. For these reasons
security testing is increasing day by day.
