An Introduction To Soak Testing

Soak Testing is a non-functional testing. Soak testing is performed to verifies a system's stability and performance over an extended period of time.

Soak Testing is nothing but a type of a performance test in which the System under Load (SUL) is tested & verified so that it can withstand a huge volume of the load for an extended period of time.Soak Testing also known as Endurance Testing.

The image below defines testing cycle that shows at which stage the Soak Testing is performed on an application.

Why should perform Soak Testing?

• A system or software may behave normally when used for 3 hours, but when the same system or software is used continuously for 12 hours or more than that, then it may fail or behave abnormally.

• To avoid such failure Soak Testing is performed.

When should perform Soak Testing?

• Soak Testing should be perform before the built is deployed to the client.

• Prior to the release of any application on a specific platform.

• It needs to go through a successful series of load tests at high or equivalent traffic levels. After that soak testing is performed.

• It helps us to determine how to run any particular application for an extended period of time.

• If issues like memory leaks are found during the period, when application under Soak Testing, then it should be immediately reported.

EXAMPLES of Soak Testing

• In Banking Domain, when there is a large amount of data from merchants, the tester will put the system under load for 80hrs to 170 hrs continuously to check how the application behaves during this loading period.

Common issues observed during Soak Testing

• Memory allocation

• Database resource utilization

• Serious memory leaks

• Failure to close database connections