What is the best way to undertake multi brand performance testing

Multi Brand Performance Testing Guidance

In order to evaluate the level of performance testing which should be executed with a multi brand application, there are a number of questions which you must ask:

1. Is the branding purely cosmetic? i.e. only images are different for each brand.

2. Are the business logic and processing the same for each brand?

3. If the application has a concept of customer data, are customers for each brand stored separately?

4. Additionally to the point above, what are the volumes of customers for each brand?

5. Are there any infrastructure differences in place for brands?. i.e. are there separate servers for each brand?

With most applications, it is not practical to script every business function for every possible brand. Note that functional testing will have covered all functionality for all brands.

A volumetric assessment muse be carried out to ascertain which are the high volume and high cost business functions which need to be scripted for performance testing. This will include an assessment of volumes based on brand as part of the analysis exercise.

If cases 1 and 2 are true, then performance testing can use alternate brands for each business function being tested. This wil minimise the number of test scripts required for the performance testing.

If case 2 is false, then further analysis will need to be carried out to assess where business functionality needs to be replicated for more than one brand.

In case 4, attention must be paid to the volumes of each brand, as if customer based brand data is used, this will have to be sized the same as the target production volumes. This may require increasing the volume of a brand to compensate for the brand volumes not included in testing.

If case 5 is true, then it is recommended that performance testing be executed on both brands, as all components of the infrastructure will be required to be performance tested, and will most likely be needed to satisfy operational requirements.

In all cases this will be a judgement call based on analysis of the above points with regard to the application being tested.