If there’s one lesson to be learned from Southwest Airlines’ system collapse last December, it’s that critical software must be regularly tested to ensure that it can handle extreme conditions.

Stress testing critical software saves organizations time and money — something Southwest learned the hard way, says Stephen Feloney, vice president of products, continuous testing, at application development tools provider Perforce. Testing performance can effectively simulate how software will behave during high-traffic periods. “Identifying and fixing errors before they’re customer-facing decreases the possibility of a crash and…