Non-functional performance requirements for digital commerce websites

When optimizing mission-critical web-based architectures, it’s important to define the non-functional requirements for a load test in order to scale and meet customer load. At AAXIS, during the mid-2000s, we performance-tested websites that advertised at the Super Bowl halftime show, optimizing their application. Since then we have implemented several high-profile Business-to-Business(B2B) and Business-to-Consumers (B2C) websites as well as ancillary web-based systems that not only successfully stood the test of traffic but thrived.?

Here are the key elements that make a well-defined non-functional performance requirements document that can support the testing process:

• Peak Requests per Minute; defines the load that the application will experience.?
• Concurrent sessions; the simultaneous users employing the system at a given time.?
• Business usage scenarios; the tasks that are performed by each type of user of the application.?
• Expected web application response time; ?the time in seconds for the general pages on the site to load.
• Background processes; the jobs and workloads that run on the server independent of user activity.
• Growth targets; the change in volume and users for the next two or more years of the application.
• Data; ?the information in the system required to perform the business tasks.
• Response SLAs; ?the time in seconds that 3rd party systems will take to respond to requests.
• Dependent software; ?other applications required by the application.?

For more details and a broader explanation, read the full article in the UX Collective.