Raising system limits
Load testing is required for one specific form of feature enhancement: raising application limits. Your product currently supports 50 simultaneous users; if that increased to 100, would it still work? The first test you need to do is load the system up to that level to check for internal limits.
The complexity of these changes is often underestimated because testers perform most of the work rather than developers. Usually, features require more time from developers than testers because designing and implementing a feature takes longer than testing it. That means companies typically have more developers than testers to reflect that difference. However, when raising an internal system limit, the development work may be as easy as changing a single number, from 50 to 100, for instance. On the other hand, the test work may involve developing new tools to reach that higher limit and, once reached, running an extensive test plan.
In a complex system, there can...
