Load Testing Blog
Load Testing with 5,000,000 Concurrent Users
At Web Performance we’ve been running large scale tests for over a decade, the result of constant testing and measurement to make sure the results are valid. As websites get bigger, we’ve had to increase the size of our tests, creating thousands of computers in the cloud to generate up to 5,000,000 concurrent users at last count.
Introducing Web Performance Legion
I want to introduce you to something new: Web Performance Legion. Legion is a new open-source research product. It’s an attempt to create a powerful load testing tool that can handle difficult and or esoteric use cases while still being easy-to-understand at its core. It’s still in the early phases of development, but if you happen to love working with Node, or you need to test a complex RESTful API, Legion might be the tool for you.
Testing Popup Windows
We often receive questions about how Load Tester handles popup windows. In this post, I’ll describe how Load Tester handles these elements and provide a sample recording.
How does Load Tester Handle Popups?
Users do not regularly encounter popups. As a result, these windows may appear to function differently from regular browser windows.
However, when recording using a virtual browser, Load Tester records any calls to the server. Replaying a recording or running a test will replay those calls whether issued from a normal browser window or a popup.
NOTE: The following method is only applicable to “Virtual Browser” recordings.
Recording a Popup Window
1. On the … Continue reading »
Generating Load from Multiple Regions – Load Tester 6.6
Load Tester’s cloud load generation feature includes the ability to use datacenters located in different geographical regions.
This post contains detailed steps for adding an Amazon EC2 account and for running a new test configuration. These instructions apply to Web Performance Load Tester 6.6 and up. For Load Tester 6.5 and earlier, see Generating Load from Multiple Countries – Load Tester 6.5.
Why Load Test From Multiple Regions?
Generating load from different regions enables more realistic load tests. Rather than using just local datacenters, tests can simulate traffic from all over the world rather than just local datacenters.
This feature also allows testing … Continue reading »
Generating Load from Multiple Regions – Load Tester 6.5
Load Tester’s cloud load generation feature includes the ability to use datacenters located in different geographical regions.
This post contains detailed steps for adding an Amazon EC2 account and for running a new test configuration. These instructions apply to Web Performance Load Tester 6.5 and earlier. For Load Tester 6.6 and up, see Generating Load from Multiple Countries – Load Tester 6.6.
Why Load Test From Multiple Regions?
Generating load from different regions enables more realistic load tests. Rather than using just local datacenters, tests can simulate traffic from all over the world rather than just local datacenters.
This feature also allows testing of … Continue reading »
Load Testing with Microsoft Edge
Last week Microsoft rolled out Windows 10, which includes the new Microsoft Edge web browser. We can hope that Microsoft Edge will leave behind many of the issues that plagued Internet Explorer and deliver a modern browsing experience competitive with what we’ve come to expect from Google Chrome and Firefox.
Currently, Web Performance Tester supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome as it’s three “top-tier” browsers for HTTP capture (virtual browser) testing and Google Chrome as the only supported browser for web driver (real browser) testing. But you can record and run load tests with Microsoft Edge today, and … Continue reading »
Mail Server Load Testing
Mail servers can be load tested by sending a large number of emails to a mail server over a specific period of time and recording how the server behaves as it receives those connections. Organizations may require this type of load testing for several reasons. For example, they generally receive a consistent, low level of mail traffic with intermittent periods of high traffic. They may also expect growth within a certain period of time and want a mail server that is capable of scaling with the organization’s growth.
REST/Web Services and API Load Testing
In this post, I’ll discuss why API testing is important, a typical situation that a tester might experience, and how to perform API testing with Web Performance Tester.
How to Change Recorded Hostnames/Edit Recorded URLs
Web Performance Tester offers several tools for changing recorded hostnames. Below, I describe common situations users may experience, and the appropriate method of changing datasources for each.
Web Performance Tester 6.5 release
If you’ve been following the quick pace of development of our real-browser features, we know you’ll be excited about these new features:
Extract values
Data in the browser can now be extracted into a user state variable for use later in the testcase. Read more…
Organize testcase steps
The steps in real-browser testcases can now be organized into hierarchical groups for better readability and easier maintenance. Read more…
Improved selection from choice boxes
Drop-down choices now support selection by position in the list (i.e. index) and by the option value (a hidden attribute in the HTML). Continue reading »
