What is a network stress test?

A practical definition for engineers and search engines.

A network stress test is a controlled experiment where you deliberately send more traffic through your infrastructure than it is expected to handle in normal operation. The purpose is not to keep services online at all costs, but to observe how they fail and recover.

Typical goals

• Find the maximum safe throughput for key services.
• Identify the component that fails first when limits are exceeded.
• Verify that monitoring and alerts trigger quickly enough.