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Why Stress Testing Matters - Failure Behavior

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

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When the system is overloaded beyond capacity during stress testing, what critical question is being answered?

How fast the system can recover once normal load resumes

Whether the system's network bandwidth is adequate for peak demand

How many users can log in simultaneously without any performance impact

Whether system failure is 'soft' and recoverable, or 'hard' and causes data loss or corruption

Correct Answer

Whether system failure is 'soft' and recoverable, or 'hard' and causes data loss or corruption

Explanation

Stress testing answers the critical question of failure behavior: when the system fails, does it fail 'softly' (gracefully degrading with no data loss, allowing recovery) or 'hard' (causing data corruption, transaction loss, or requiring full restart)? Failure mode is critical - especially for systems handling financial or medical data where data corruption is unacceptable.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 10th edition

Quizzes you can take where this question appears

Release Testing - Performance and Stress Testing