First of all, let us see what is the meaning of the term “Performance Testingâ€: For general engineering practice, “Performance Testing†refers to evaluation & measurement of functional characteristics of an individual, a system, a product or any material. However in software industry parlance, the term “Performance Testing†widely refers to the evaluation & measurement of functional effectiveness of a software system or a component, as regards its reliability, scalability, efficiency, interoperability & its stability under load. These days a new science by the name “Performance Engineering†is emerging in IT industry & Performance Testing / Acceptance Testing are being viewed as its subsets. The performance engineering lays prime emphasis on covering the performance aspects in the system design itself i.e. right from the beginning & more important is that well before the start of actual coding. Why Software Industry lays so much emphasis on Performance Testing: The key reasons are: 1) Performance has become the key indicator of product quality and acceptance consideration nowadays in a highly dynamic & competitive market. 2) Customers are becoming extremely demanding on quality front & have clear vision of their performance objectives. 3) These days, every customer is looking for greater speed, scalability, reliability, efficiency & endurance of all applications – may it be multi tier applications, web based applications or client server applications etc. etc. Read the full article at: http://www.softwaretestinggenius.com/hotarticles.php?mode=details&qry=384