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Understand API Load Testing vs. API Performance Monitoring
With over a billion more mobile devices projected to become connected over the next year, it’s never been more important to ensure SLA performance and functional reliability for business-critical APIs. While QA, development, and SRE teams have traditionally relied on API load testing and uptime or ping monitors to mitigate performance risk, too many companies have felt the pain of APIs, mobile apps and web platforms failing under stress or unexpected traffic patterns. For instance, a ticket sales and live events company might expect its API management platform to throttle traffic during expected spikes due to holidays, sudden changes in sporting or concert event times, etc. But ensuring API reliability and SLA performance through all scenarios has become far more challenging due to the sheer scale of integrations involved in even a single API flow. SRE and performance engineering teams looking to eliminate performance bottlenecks should understand the important differences between traditional API load testing vs. true API performance monitoring.