Load Testing (Deep Workflow)
Load tests answer whether the system meets behavior under target load—not “how many RPS the tool prints.” Tie every run to SLOs, workload realism, and analysis that engineers can act on.
When to Offer This Workflow
Trigger conditions:
- Major launch, traffic spike season, infra resize
- Latency/timeout under peak; need evidence for capacity decisions
- Comparing architectures or debottlenecking
Initial offer:
Use seven stages: (1) goals & SLOs, (2) workload model, (3) scenarios & scripts, (4) environment & data, (5) run & observe, (6) analyze bottlenecks, (7) fixes & retest. Confirm tool (k6, Locust, Gatling, JMeter) and environment policy (prod-like staging vs synthetic).
Stage 1: Goals & SLOs
Goal: Define success in measurable terms.
Questions
- Peak RPS/users, growth assumption, duration of peak
- SLOs: p95/p99 latency, error rate, throughput per critical endpoint
- Scope: read-heavy vs write-heavy; background jobs interaction
Exit condition: Numeric targets + out of scope (e.g., “third-party API mocked”).
Stage 2: Workload Model
Goal: Representative mix—not one URL forever.
Practices
- Transaction mix from analytics or access logs (proportions)
- Think time between steps for user journeys
- Payload size distribution; auth token behavior
- Spike vs soak vs step ramp—match real failure modes
Exit condition: Workload profile documented (table or script comments).
Stage 3: Scenarios & Scripts
Goal: Deterministic, idempotent load scripts where possible.
Practices
- Correlate virtual user with trace/request id for debugging
- Parameterize data to avoid cache fantasy (every request hits same key)
- Order operations to match real causality (login → browse → checkout)
Pitfalls
- Client-side bottleneck (single generator machine)—distribute load generators
Exit condition: Smoke run at small k validates script correctness.
Stage 4: Environment & Data
Goal: Fidelity without destroying prod.
Rules
- Staging scale proportional; feature flags aligned
- Data volume similar order-of-magnitude for DB plans
- External deps: mock, sandbox, or throttle awareness
Exit condition: Safety checklist: no prod writes unless explicitly planned and isolated.
Stage 5: Run & Observe
Goal: System-wide visibility during test.
Instrumentation
- App: latency histograms, error codes, queue depth
- Infra: CPU, memory, connections, GC, disk IOPS
- DB: slow queries, locks, replication lag
- Tracing sample during test for hot spans
Exit condition: Dashboard or runbook link for the test window.
Stage 6: Analyze Bottlenecks
Goal: Identify dominant constraint: app, DB, network, dependency.
Process
- Utilization vs saturation (e.g., CPU high but wait on locks—different fix)
- Compare p95 vs max—tail often separate issue
- Reproduce bottleneck with smaller experiment when unclear
Exit condition: Written hypothesis with evidence (graphs, trace ids).
Stage 7: Fixes & Retest
Goal: Controlled changes with retest protocol.
Practices
- One major change per retest when debugging
- Document baseline vs after for regression to capacity planning
Final Review Checklist
- SLO-aligned goals and workload mix
- Realistic scenarios; distributed load if needed
- Environment safe and representative enough
- Full-stack observability during runs
- Bottleneck analysis leads to actionable tickets
Tips for Effective Guidance
- Warm caches explicitly if prod is always warm—otherwise misleading good numbers.
- Throughput without latency SLO is meaningless.
- Call out coordination overhead (locks, hot keys) vs raw CPU.
Handling Deviations
- Cannot match prod data: state assumptions and test directional only.
- Serverless: account for cold start and account concurrency limits in interpretation.