This thesis uses data from a real-world distributed system to develop a model for realistic load tests, and analyzes the results of several different workload scenarios on a test deployment. The research focused on characterizing the workload of the real-world Pretio system using logs captured from the production deployment, modelling a workload from those logs, and analyzing the impact on a test deployment of the system of a series of scenarios providing different parameters to the model. The results were evaluated by testing the response time distributions across multiple test runs for statistical similarity. / Graduate