SimulatedRides: How Lyft uses load testing to ensure reliable service during peak events

SimulatedRides: How Lyft uses load testing to ensure reliable service during peak events

摘要

We know what you’re thinking — testing in production is one of the cardinal sins of software development. However, at Lyft we have come to realize that load testing in production is a powerful tool to prepare systems for unexpected bursty traffic and peak events. We’ll explore why Lyft needed a custom performance testing framework that worked in production, how we built a cross-functional solution, and how we’ve continued to improve this testing platform since its launch in 2016.

What exactly do we mean by “Load Testing”? In the context of this article we mean any tool that creates traffic to stress test systems and see how they perform at the limits of their capacity.