What do they mean by stress test?

Anyone? i.i

I've been crashing a whole lot. but what is this stress test for? Does that mean SL will be offline again or what? they dun explain much...i need specifics!!!!!

A stress test is where one places a machine or system under high load, with the intent to literally test how it performs under stress.

The Lindens have said their goal is 4000 concurrent users, so no, SL will not be down during that time; rather, there will be more users than have ever been connected at one time. This may result in poor performance, but then, that's the point of the test, to find out if it will or not.

This will allow them to better prioritize updates to both simulators and to the asset system. Peak logins have increased by about 500 users over the past couple of months. With this in mind, one can see that 4000 concurrent users may not be far off on it's own, so it's better that it be tested now, to avoid capacity problems like we've all seen over the last few months.

Absolutely right.

But it is generally more than just a litmus test to see whether it works or not. They will be watching, monitoring, and measuring everything. The goal wouldn't be be to simply see if it can handle some number of users, but also to see whether increasing the load has the expected effects on various bits and pieces. They will be able to make better guesses about what the optimum and maximum load is, and what sorts of changes are needed to increase those.

Buster

Lol well they dont need a stress test to tell them the teleporters dont work with 2,500 users, ack they even fail with 1,000 users.

This is WHY they need to test it. By placing the system in an extreme situation it should magnify and make clearer the weaker spots in the design. We should be happy to try and wreck the grid for them, so they can give us a better grid later.

yes and there will be Free Beer tomorow.

Awwwww. You make an adorable cynic. Very cute.