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Stress Testing Definition

publish date: 1969/12/31 00:00:00 UTC

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What is stress testing in the context of release testing?

Testing with the minimum possible load to find memory leaks

Testing to measure the exact performance specification numbers

Testing the system beyond its design capacity limits to observe failure behavior

Testing the psychological stress experienced by the development team during late-stage testing

Correct Answer

Testing the system beyond its design capacity limits to observe failure behavior

Explanation

Stress testing involves deliberately overloading the system beyond its design capacity. The goal is to observe how the system behaves under extreme conditions and how it fails. Stress testing checks whether system failure, when it occurs, is recoverable or causes unacceptable data loss or corruption. It is not about testing at design capacity - that is performance testing.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 10th edition

Quizzes you can take where this question appears

Release Testing - Performance and Stress Testing