Scenario Matrix Template

About

A Scenario Matrix Template for Stress Testing organizes test cases that determine how a system behaves under extreme or beyond-peak load conditions. Unlike load testing, which verifies performance under expected traffic, stress testing focuses on breaking points — identifying the point at which the system fails and how it recovers.

This matrix ensures:

• The system’s upper performance limits are known

• Bottlenecks are identified under extreme resource utilization

• The system fails gracefully instead of crashing unexpectedly

• Recovery procedures and failover mechanisms work as intended

Stress testing scenarios often include sudden spikes in traffic, extreme data volumes, hardware limitations, and prolonged overload situations.

Template

Scenario ID	Scenario Description	Preconditions	Test Data / Inputs	Steps to Execute	Expected Result	Priority	Remarks
STS-01	Identify maximum concurrent user capacity	Test environment with monitoring	Gradual increase of concurrent users beyond expected peak	Ramp load until system response degrades	Identify user count at which SLA is breached	High	Finds system breaking point
STS-02	Sudden load spike test	Load tool with spike capability	Normal to extreme user jump	Simulate instant spike in users	System handles spike or degrades gracefully	High	Validates sudden demand handling
STS-03	Continuous overload resilience	Application under test	Sustained load above capacity for extended period	Maintain overload for hours	System remains stable or degrades predictably	High	Checks long-term overload impact
STS-04	Resource exhaustion (CPU)	Monitoring tools ready	Heavy CPU-intensive tasks	Execute CPU-heavy operations with traffic	CPU usage reaches limit without total crash	Medium	Finds CPU bottlenecks
STS-05	Resource exhaustion (Memory)	Heap monitoring enabled	Large in-memory data loads	Push memory usage beyond limits	System throws expected errors without corruption	Medium	Detects memory leaks or GC issues
STS-06	DB under extreme query volume	DB with large dataset	Massive concurrent query load	Execute high-volume queries	DB handles load or responds with controlled errors	Medium	Identifies DB stress limits
STS-07	External service under extreme load	Sandbox or test API	Exceed normal API call rate	Call external API rapidly	Application handles delays, throttling, or failures	Medium	Checks integration stress handling
STS-08	Failover under stress	Failover system active	High load + component failure	Induce failure while under stress	Failover occurs without major downtime	High	Validates resilience
STS-09	Stress with degraded network	Network simulation enabled	High latency/packet loss	Run stress load with poor network	System still functions at reduced performance	Low	Real-world network degradation test
STS-10	Post-stress recovery	Stress test completed	Normal load after stress	Reduce load to normal	System recovers without lingering performance issues	High	Confirms recovery ability