Testing and Splunk

Tests are commonly categorized by where they are added in the software development process, or by how specific the test is.

Testing levels are classified by the test’s objectives. The common levels of testing are: unit, integration, system, acceptance, performance and regression.

Unit testing

Unit (or module) testing refers to testing that verifies a specific “section of code”, usually at a very basic level.

Integration

This type of testing focuses on validating the linkage between components within a solution.

Component interface

This kind of testing emphases the information that is passed between components in a solution (not to be confused with integration testing that is focused on the actual component linkage

System

System testing (often referred to as your “end-to-end” testing) refers to a completely integrated solution test – verifying that the solution really does meet requirements.

Acceptance

Acceptance testing is the (perhaps) last step, phase or “level” in your testing effort. This is when your solution is actually “distributed” to your user community’s for (hopefully) acceptance.

Performance

The objective of performance testing is to focus on determining what level that a particular component or entire solution will perform given expected workloads.

Splunk and its amazing “Performance Testing Kit”

“True to form”, Splunk offers a downloadable “test kit” to help with your Splunk performance testing and tuning. “Splunkit” is an extendable app that streamlines an organizations practice of performance testing by:

• Automatically generating test data
• Creating “patterned searches” that simulate a Splunk user running command line searches
• Producing sets of benchmark measurements informational statistics

Splunkit is configurable – you can set the speed at which data is generated or use your own custom data. You can also set the number of simulated users and thier specific usage patterns. Splunkit will work without a complicated setup – even with complicated directory structures or deployment configurations.