.NET Architecture & System Design Interview Question #194

What is load testing?

Deployment, Cloud Operations, SRE & Senior System Design Scenarios Senior Advanced

Quick Interview Answer

Load testing measures system behavior under expected or elevated workload. It helps identify throughput limits, latency changes, resource saturation, and bottlenecks before production traffic exposes them.

Detailed Explanation

Load testing measures system behavior under expected or elevated workload. It helps identify throughput limits, latency changes, resource saturation, and bottlenecks before production traffic exposes them.

Useful tests model realistic request mixes, data volumes, concurrency, and dependency behavior. Average latency alone is insufficient; percentiles, errors, saturation, and resource metrics should also be examined.

Code Example

Test load
   |
API -> Cache -> Database
   |
Measure:
RPS, p95/p99, errors,
CPU, memory, connections