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acceptable level. Performance testing is a superset of line speed testing in which performance applies
to many aspects of a network device or application, and not just line speed.
Load Testing: Load testing is used to determine how well a system will perform in a typical
environment under a specific load. Load testing is useful when you are confident that the application
is functionally sound, but you do not know how the application will perform under a specific load.
The example of a load test is a call generator application that generates 1000 calls that a telephone
switch must process. Does the switch continue to operate? Does its performance degrade or it
crashes?
Stress Testing process of subjecting the device under test to out of boundary conditions. The
device under test should report an error message, gracefully shut down, or reject the input in some
other way. In no case, should the device under test crash, reboot, or cause any harm.
An example of stress test can be 50 SNMP managers simultaneously querying one SNMP agent in
the device under test. Normally, no more than one to three managers concurrently query an SNMP
agent in a device. The device should perform an appropriate action.
Line Speed Testing - process of verifying that a device can operate at its rated line speed, when the
bandwidth is 100% utilized or saturated.
For example, if the device is rated as operating at 5 Giga bytes per second, then the device should be
able to handle incoming traffic utilizing all the available bandwidth.
Robustness Testing - process of subjecting a device under test to particular input streams. The input
streams may be one of three types: