Load Testing Blog
Bootstrapping an Alpine EC2 instance for Ansible and Docker
One of the challenges in running a large load test is the orchestration of a large number of machines to generate load. This involves a series of steps:
Creating the instances
Install the load testing software
Sending the test configuration
Run the test
Collect test results
Shutdown the instances
Load Tester does that pretty effortlessly in EC2 – our customers as well as our own test engineers love not having to worry about those steps. It just works. As I evolve our next generation of testing tools, I am revisiting this problem and looking at solutions from a different angle. Last week, I decided to investigate … Continue reading »
Performance Goals and Analysis Methods
We are getting close enough to the 3.6 release that I’m able to talk more about the new features – so look for more posts in the next few days. I blogged previously about the improved performance goal features, but at the time, I could not detail how they would be used to improve Load Tester’s analysis reports.
ChrisWhen his dad brought home a Commodore PET computer, Chris was drawn into computers. 7 years later, after finishing his degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering at Purdue University, he found himself writing software for industrial control systems. … Continue reading »
Load Testing A Web Application Running in a Virtual Machine
Determining the CPU cost of virtualization with VMware ESX
The performance of our reference application under load (a default SugarCRM installation) on a virtualized server showed a 14% decrease, measured by total system capacity, compared to the same system running natively on equivalent hardware.
Read the report
ChrisWhen his dad brought home a Commodore PET computer, Chris was drawn into computers. 7 years later, after finishing his degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering at Purdue University, he found himself writing software for industrial control systems. His first foray into testing software resulted in an innovative control system for testing … Continue reading »
Load Testing a Virtual Web Application
Measuring the Performance Impact of Virtualizing a Web Application Server
Virtualization is hot. Over the past few months, it would be difficult to pick an IT magazine out of my stack that does not have an article on Virtualization. Even in our small company, we have two VMware servers. This allowed us to reduce 9 underutilized servers down to two physical machines. Because the original severs were severely underutilized, the virtualized servers actually perform better (running on newer hardware). They are easier to manage – especially for backups. We have reduced the risk of configuration changes, software installs and upgrades by … Continue reading »