Load testing

A load test answers one of two questions, and confusing them wastes the effort:

• Can it handle X?: a specific, known target. Verification.
• Where does it break, and how?: the ceiling and the failure mode. Discovery.

Discovery is usually more valuable. Knowing you handle 1,000 requests per second tells you less than knowing that at 1,200 the connection pool exhausts and every request hangs for 30 seconds rather than failing fast.

1. Model realistic traffic, not a single endpoint

Hammering one endpoint measures that endpoint. Real systems fail through interaction — a slow report query saturating the pool that the login path needs.