Identify performance test cases

Break down your application into sensible functional stages that you identify as being performance sensitive and for each of these identify what performance criteria you need to evaluate. For each identified test case plan a test load and document any specific configuration that is required. In particular give consideration to deployed processes that may trigger processing at defined intervals or times. In the context of the sample application, the heartbeat flow can trigger processing at 1 and 2 minute intervals, it may be prudent to disable this kind of flow while running certain test cases to avoid the variance they might cause in the results.