Load testing applications

Nicola D Orazio and Jonatan Reiners, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

May 2022 (document history)

Load tests are done to gain reliable information on whether your application is delivering the expected qualities. Although the most common approach is to generate load on your applications, there are different ways you can understand load testing. This guide explores the different ways to load test and what questions can be answered. It will also explain implications of load testing to help prevent pitfalls when running the tests. Finally, the guide will cover several tools and their applicability.

Important information before you start

Running load tests on Amazon Web Services (AWS) can initiate security mechanisms. For more information, see the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) testing policy. Penetration testing can be run only on permitted AWS services. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) testing must be performed by a pre-approved AWS Partner.

Furthermore, consider the costs that load tests will generate and the service quotas for your services. Your test requirements might exceed the threshold that AWS has set up for each service. During your test planning phase, we recommend spending time to investigate the cost implications of creating the infrastructure needed to set up and run the test. We also recommend creating billing alerts that will monitor the expense of the services that you are going to stress the most.