The two opposite sides of the same coin are software engineering and performance testing. Also, the duties of a performance engineer are different from those of a performance tester. Thus, PTLC and PELC were created to simplify the processes involved in Performance Testing and Performance Engineering respectively. First, let’s try to understand how performance testing and performance engineering differ from each other:
- Benchmark testing is a method of evaluating the responsiveness and load capacity of an application. Performance tests show how a system will perform under production load and identify potential problems before they occur. By contrast, the goal of performance engineering is to design the application with performance metrics in mind and to identify potential issues as early in the development cycle as possible.
- Performance testing is a single quality control procedure that takes place after a round of development has been completed, whereas performance engineering is an ongoing procedure that takes place at all stages of the development cycle, from design to quality control.
- A dedicated performance tester or team well-versed in the concept of performance testing, the operation of the tool, the analysis of results, etc. performs the performance test. A performance engineer is a person with sufficient experience in application design, architecture, development, tuning, performance optimization, and bottleneck detection and resolution.
- Performance testers must examine test results and identify defects when a bottleneck occurs during performance testing. A performance engineer, on the other hand, is responsible for identifying the root causes of the problem and finding a workable solution.
- Application design and architecture are not particularly important to performance testers. While a performance engineer is concerned with how well each application component performs under load, he only focuses on the behavior of the program.
- A well-aligned application design that has been vetted and approved by a performance engineer is more cost-effective than the bottleneck discovered during the performance testing phase.
- The Performance Engineering Life Cycle (PELC) includes all engineering activities and deliverables, while the Performance Testing Life Cycle (PTLC) includes all phases of performance testing.
Here are some things that will clarify the distinction between PT and PE. Please reply in the comment box if you feel there are more points to highlight.
Finally, if a performance tester is interested in identifying bottlenecks, root cause analysis, and application tuning, he or she will make an excellent performance engineer. However, he must be well-versed in application design and architecture to be effective in this role.
