CTFL-PT_D ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level - Specialist Performance Testing Questions and Answers

Generating load through the User Interface (UI) is essential to replicate a real production environment accurately. This approach simulates real user interactions with the system, providing a more realistic assessment of how the system performs under actual usage conditions. According to ISTQB standards, using the UI to generate load helps identify performance issues that users might experience, ensuring that the test results are relevant and actionable.

The correct associations between the aspects and factors to be considered when selecting performance testing tools are:

Compatibility: Protocols. (C)

Scalability: Ability to generate load from multiple points of presence. (D)

Understandability: Level of technical knowledge needed to use the tool. (A)

Monitoring: Correlation of the monitoring with the defined transactions. (B)

References:

ISTQB Performance Testing Syllabus

ISTQB Glossary

Transaction nesting allows performance testers to measure both individual activities within a transaction and the aggregate performance of the entire transaction. This is beneficial because it helps identify specific areas where performance issues may be occurring. By understanding both the granular and overall performance, testers can better pinpoint bottlenecks and optimize the system. This aligns with the ISTQB principles of comprehensive performance measurement and analysis to ensure system reliability and efficiency.

Correlation is a critical step in preparing performance test scripts, especially when they are generated from protocol-level recordings. It involves handling dynamic values (such as session IDs or tokens) that change with each user session or transaction. Without correlation, the script fails to handle these dynamic values correctly, leading to playback errors. According to ISTQB principles, ensuring scripts are properly correlated is essential for accurate and functional test execution.

1A: Alerts and warnings are typically part of the operating environment to monitor and respond to issues in real-time.

2B: Concurrency of usage is critical in the business environment where multiple users interact with the system simultaneously.

3A: Operational processes are key aspects of the operating environment, ensuring the smooth running of day-to-day activities.

4C: Resource utilization is a technical concern, focusing on how effectively system resources are used.

5C: Response time is a technical metric that directly affects user experience and system efficiency.

6B: Throughput of data, transactions, and other units of work performed is relevant to the business environment where the volume of operations impacts overall performance.

This categorization aligns with the ISTQB framework for performance evaluation across different environments, ensuring comprehensive coverage of performance metrics.

In an Agile, iterative, and incremental development model:

III: The performance test may be conducted by a specific team. This is true as dedicated performance testing teams often handle complex performance testing tasks.

IV: A performance test cycle must be performed in each iteration by the development team (Agile). This ensures that performance testing is integrated into each iteration to catch performance issues early.

Statements I and II are not necessarily true:

I: While possible, it is not always the case that there will be a dedicated iteration for performance testing.

II: Performance testing in a cloud-based environment is beneficial but not mandatory.

References:

ISTQB Performance Testing Syllabus

ISTQB Agile Tester Extension Syllabus

Mobile applications often face performance risks due to the limited resources available on mobile devices, such as CPU, memory, battery, and network bandwidth. These constraints can significantly impact the performance of mobile applications, leading to slower response times and degraded user experiences. ISTQB performance testing guidelines emphasize considering the specific resource limitations of mobile environments to ensure comprehensive performance evaluation and optimization.

Disk fragmentation (I) can lead to slower data retrieval times as the disk has to work harder to read fragmented files.

File repository growth (III) increases the amount of data that must be managed and retrieved, which can slow down response times.

Memory leaks (IV) gradually consume available memory, leading to slower system performance as the available memory for processing tasks decreases.

Network latency (II) and inadequate database design (V) are also potential causes of performance degradation, but in this context, options I, III, and IV are the most directly related to the gradual degradation of response times over time. This understanding is supported by common performance testing practices outlined in ISTQB materials.

The characteristic risks associated with different architectures are as follows:

Dynamic/cloud-based systems: Critical workflows or dataflows to, from, or through unreliable or unpredictable remote servers, especially when such servers suffer periodic connection problems or intermittent periods of intense load. (C)

Client-server systems: Potential problems due to firewalls, packet inspection, and server load balancing. (A)

Multi-Tier systems: Failures related to the correct configuration of features such as distribution, virtualization, and scaling, during the initial configuration or subsequent updates. (D)

Distributed systems: Inadequate bandwidth or capacity on any individual server. (B)

References:

ISTQB Performance Testing Syllabus

ISTQB Glossary