Auto-PIP: Real-time Identification of Critical Performance Inflection Points in Software Stress Testing

Conducting stress testing is essential to ensure the stability and performance of software systems post-launch. Among its various aspects, the real-time identification of the "Smooth Load Area" (SLA) is crucial for establishing performance benchmarks, identifying bottlenecks, guiding optimization strategies, and strategically allocating resources. However, existing methods are incapable of real-time inflection point detection or require manual intervention. This paper proposes Auto-PIP, an automated identification framework for performance inflection points based on key performance indicators (KPIs) during performance stress tests. Auto-PIP integrates trend testing algorithms with unsupervised anomaly detection algorithms to identify optimal operating points and estimate maximum capacity. Auto-PIP has been deployed in Huawei Cloud, and the evaluation results show that Auto-PIP demonstrated 100% accuracy in optimal inflection point detection, a 41.7% leap over baselines, and 83.9% accuracy in maximum point identification, a 10.7% gain. Additionally, we have released the dataset to the public to promote ongoing research.