It involves testing software applications to ensure they will perform well under their expected workload.
Features and Functionality supported by a software system is not the only concern. A software application's performance like its response time, do matter. The goal of performance testing is not to find bugs but to eliminate performance bottlenecks.
The focus of Performance testing is checking a software program's. Speed - Determines whether the application responds quickly. Scalability - Determines maximum user load the software application can handle. Stability - Determines if the application is stable under varying loads.
Performance testing is done to provide stakeholders with information about their application regarding speed, stability and scalability. More importantly, performance testing uncovers what needs to be improved before the product goes to market. Without performance testing, software is likely to suffer from issues such as: running slow while several users use it simultaneously, inconsistencies across different operating systems and poor usability. Performance testing will determine whether or not their software meets speed, scalability and stability requirements under expected workloads. Applications sent to market with poor performance metrics due to nonexistent or poor performance testing are likely to gain a bad reputation and fail to meet expected sales goals.Also, mission critical applications like space launch programs or life saving medical equipments should be performance tested to ensure that they run for a long period of time without deviations.