Conclusion

This document has highlighted best practices and detailing a methodology using Akamai CloudTest. Here is a summary of those best practices:

• Plan in advance the maximum amount of transactions per second with additional safety buffer included
• Populate the user database as if these are real users with real encrypted passwords with the same hashing algorithm as the production system (for example, bcrypt)
• Define validation for error tracking; enable granular error tracking for easier troubleshooting
• Use parameters to generate random unique email and display names
• Use email and display names of more than 10 characters to avoid collisions
• For load test, pick users randomly without replacement
• With CloudTest, each load generator maximum should not be exceeded
• Let CloudTest automatically spin up the required test servers
• Use cloud provider’s spot instances, if available
• Do a calibration run first before full load testing
• Use CloudTest analysis dashboards like error analysis; waterfall together with external data sources to perform analysis and rectify issues.
• Follow up with an outside-in load test