What is stress testing?

Stress testing is testing that investigates the behavior of software (and hardware) under extraordinary operating conditions. For example, when a web server is stress tested, testing aims to find out how many users can be on-line, at the same time, without crashing the server. Stress testing tests the stability of a given system or entity. It tests something beyond its normal operational capacity, in order to observe any negative results. For example, a web server is stress tested, using scripts, bots, and various denial of service tools