Performance Tests are done to verify end-to-

end time taken for critical business

processes and transactions.
This type of testing can be used to detect
performance problems early in the lifecycle
to verify whether a prototype or an
implementation can meet stated
specifications or requirements.
If there are bottlenecks under low load
conditions, these need to be identified and
resolved during design or coding phases
much before correction could become
expensive.
A tool is normally used to generate
performance scripts and results, which
increases repeatability. Increased
repeatability also enhances capability for
benchmarking.
Load Testing
The purpose of load testing is to test the
scalability of an application by gradually
increasing the load on the system.
This is done by recording performance
measures under various load conditions the
point at which the performance really starts
degrading under given environment can be
determined and this should meet the
specifications.
This test helps to ensure that the system
performs as per requirements under
anticipated load.
This also helps to determine the minimum
configuration under which the system can
perform smoothly.
Stress Testing
The objective of this test is to probe the
behaviour of the application under very
heavy load (close to breaking point), to
discover the product’s capacity limits or to
identify limits imposed by the product
design or its environment.
This is done by exercising the product close to
or beyond its documented limits in terms of
transactions, memory size, CPU usage,
database size, data-traffic volumes etc.
One of the frequent approaches used is to
starve the application of resources
(memory, CPU time, connection pools etc.)
and find breaking point of application.