CT-PT: Certified Tester Performance Testing

You are overseeing testing for an existing distributed system that manages inventories of automobile and light-truck tires from multiple warehouses nationwide. The system is being enhanced to track incoming restocking shipments at the warehouse point of entry and outbound sales shipments at the warehouse point of shipment, all processed in real time. System load has traditionally peaked on Mondays because demand accumulates over the preceding weekend.

During an earlier test, substantial performance issues occurred when large volumes of outbound shipments were recorded to the database at nearly the same time. This has probably been resolved by implementing a distributed database across multiple regional servers. You are now prepared to conduct a new performance test in the distributed environment.

What should be a key component of the test acceptance criteria in your performance test plan?