Uptime is the performance measure customers and service users judge you on. But in today’s interconnected world, a good score is getting harder to achieve.
Eggplant Blog
The coronavirus pandemic has changed all facets of our lives, ranging from how we work to how we relax to how our children learn. There are countless implications of this, including the potential for long-term and, in some cases, permanent changes to business processes. Just 12% of the respondents in a recent Gartner survey believe their businesses are highly prepared for the impact of coronavirus and the majority expect the pandemic to disrupt operations for the foreseeable future.
In a recent joint announcement from Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce, the companies stated, “The healthcare industry is at a turning point. Patients and providers are eager for advances in value-based care, patient engagement, and machine learning as they look to usher in a new era of constantly-improving health outcomes and well-being. Interoperability is key to removing the barriers between the healthcare industry and the future it seeks to build.”
On June 18, many Google Calendar users worldwide got an unexpected surprise when logging into the app—an error message. The issue was resolved approximately three hours later but, as anyone who lives and dies by their calendar knows, three hours is plenty of time to wreak scheduling havoc. The same day, restaurant chain Taco Bell also made headlines for tech issues, when heavy traffic in response to its free Taco giveaway caused the app to crash.
A surge in traffic is in many ways a dream for any website. After all, more traffic means more customers and more sales.
However, you can sometimes do your job too well when your successful marketing campaign brings surges of traffic, causing your website or app to slow down and even crash. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than seeing your website or app fail just when you have the most to gain.
Most blogs and articles just state traffic-induced crashes as something that can happen. But if you don’t understand how high traffic crashes a website or app, how can you expect to avoid the problem?
When people are angry, they have always taken to the streets to protest.
They still do.
But the internet offers an alternative forum in which to voice strong opinions. So what happens when that forum is cut off?
With the Shift-Up series thus far, we have explored the importance of testing and thinking as a customer. The basic premise is that we need to add another dimension to Quality Assurance other than Shift-Left and Shift-Right. This new dimension focuses on how your customer is actually using your application and if the intersection of your application, customer behavior, and your company’s business objectives all align.
The purpose of software testing has been steadily shifting from ‘does it work?’ to ‘does it deliver the required business outcomes?’, with an increasing focus on end-user requirements. It’s no longer enough to rely on metrics such as x% of tests passed. Now we have to understand the impact on the people using the product and the wider implications for the organization. There is a need to bridge that gap between meeting testing objectives and actually meeting customer expectations.
Performance testing just got a lot easier.
While delivering quality at scale is essential, simply setting up a performance test can be a challenging and time-consuming exercise, and then you need to analyze it. So, despite its importance, performance testing is not commonly used during development cycles.
“Effortless Performance Testing” in Eggplant Performance 9.0 changes all that, with a simple-to-use load testing capability that re-uses your existing Eggplant AI assets. So you can now run performance load tests on your system with no technical knowledge and no coding.
Many website owners are gearing up for their busiest time of year, with preparations well under way for the pre-Christmas rush.
Part of this means making sure the website is up and running throughout the peak period.
But it’s not just about availability.
Here are some essential steps to help you make sure your website delivers the best possible experience when it matters most.