We support various load scenarios. Each load scenario is different in the users ramp-up time and the continuous load after the ramp-up period.
Ramp-up time is the time it takes for users to ramp up from zero to the maximum capacity. The ramp-up time has a high influence over the website performance as the action of spawning a new thread/process to deal with a new user is very expensive in terms of resources.
Load Scenario - Users are gradually ramping up from zero to a full load capacity in a period of 30 minutes. The load then continues for additional 10 minutes and then stops.
Stress Scenario - Users are quickly ramping up from zero to a full load capacity in a period of 10 minutes. The load then continues for additional 30 minutes and then stops. In this case you are stressing your system for a period of 10 minutes, then the system is tested under continuous load.
Extreme Stress Scenario - Users are ramping up from zero to a full load capacity in a period of 5 minutes. The load then continues for additional 35 minutes and then stops. In this case you are testing your website under extreme stress conditions, where all users are ramping up with-in 5 minutes, then the system is tested under continuous load.
For example, imagine having a TV campaign, that encourages users to go to your website at a specific time. At that time your website can experience heavy traffic with-in a short period of time. This is a stress scenario, where users are ramping up from zero to a high volume in a short period of time.
If you just want to test your website under a load scenario than you do not want a short ramp-up period as it can overwhelm your server.