This article is a part of the Self-paced Learning Series for the Course: Performance Testing in Worksoft SaaS.

Please refer to the link for more details on the Course.

Until now, we have seen the capturing metrics. But if the application should be tested with real load(like, when the actual end user hits the application) to get the most relavant response time.

Let me explain what is difference and how it is impacting our performance tests.

Let's take an example of placing an order in a e-commerce website. Consider while end user placing the order, user takes 15 to 20 mins of time on an average. This time includes seraching for a product, thinking to select product features or chracterstics. After adding multiple products, user will compare to finalise the desired products. At the end, end user stays more time on some pages and do back and forth between multiple pages. By all these, the response time will vary while mutliple users doing the same actions.

It may not be possible to mimic the exact behavior but we can mimic upto some extent by using think times concept.

Now, what are Think times? Think times are like adding pauses while the test case is being executed. These times will be added at multiple places through out the entire execution. Think times will be calculated as follows, remove the Automation execution time from Manual execution time. The additional time will be divided and added across run definition based on the criticality of usage steps