Testing practice

How to analyze a load test report? Part 1: Basics

November 2, 2013 by Ivan Lisitsyn 0 comments

After you run a test with a load testing tool such as WAPT, you normally get a long report with many tables and probably some charts with performance parameters. At first glance all these numbers do not help you answering a very simple question that you actually have: was the test successful or not?

However if you know where to look, in most cases you can get this answer in just few minutes if not seconds.

The information in the test report can be divided into the following categories.

* Parameters of the generated load;
* Errors occurred inside user sessions;
* Response time data;
* Throughput data;
* Other parameters.

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Extreme online shopping with WAPT Pro

March 20, 2013 by Ivan Lisitsyn 0 comments

Recently we have discovered that our load testing solution can be applied in a quite unusual way. One of our users has shared his “success story” with us. It perfectly shows how widely you can apply the product if you know its features very well and have a good fantasy.

The story is actually about Cyber Monday online shopping. You know, some web sites run very special actions to attract customers. They sell limited number of items at exceptionally low prices. In theory you can make a very good deal if you participate. In practice this is almost impossible, because each new item is ordered by someone immediately after it becomes available. Here is where WAPT Pro appeared to be a great automation solution.

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Testing practice WAPT usage

Load testing a mobile website for iPhone

November 18, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 3 comments

While mobile devices are replacing PCs for almost all possible applications, the Internet is also changing to address this technology shift. On the other hand, despite the unbelievable progress in the performance characteristics of smartphones and handheld computers, they are doomed to stay different from PCs by one parameter: screen size.

That is why most web sites offer different content when they are visited from a mobile device.

Of course, this content is usually just a reduced version with a very similar functionality. However the implementation of the underlying web application can be different.

As a result, your web site can experience significantly different performance problems when it is accessed by multiple mobile users.

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Testing practice WAPT usage

Stress testing a web site with 100,000+ virtual users

September 21, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 4 comments

It is not a typical load testing project when you need to create 100 thousand virtual users. More than half of all web load tests are conducted with just a thousand virtual users or less, because higher load is not actually anticipated on the target web site in production.

Note that we are not talking about the number of users per day or hour. Those are concurrent users working with the web site simultaneously, in parallel.

At the same time a huge load mentioned in the title of this article is not a fantasy.

Such tests are really required for web sites with growing audience and advanced client functionality. Imagine any web site that delivers customizable user-dependent content updating dynamically: stock quotes, online meetings and chats, monitoring tools, etc. […]

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Testing practice

Creating a load test report

May 31, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 69 comments

One of the most common questions in load testing is how to create a good test report that you would be able to present to your manager or customer. This big question actually consists of many smaller ones. What to start with? How to create the right test? What load parameters should be applied? How to interpret the results? Which numbers to look at when you browse through a long report generated by a load testing tool?

I will hardly answer all these questions and present the complete methodology in one article. This would be a long story and… it would be too boring. I know that there is a 90% chance that you really need something more simple and ready to use right away. I will simply present an example of the load testing report. A typical one, if you want.

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Testing practice

HTTP Redirects

April 21, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 0 comments

Each HTTP response produced by a web site contains status code. Browser uses that code to interpret the meaning of the response. Basically there can be three different cases:

The request has been processed successfully by the server and the response body contains the requested resource (web page, image, etc.).

An error has occurred.

Server redirects the request to a new URL.

In the latter case the response contains a special “Location” header in which the new URL is provided. When browser receives such response, it automatically issues a new request using the specified URL. This way it can be redirected even to a different web site. The whole thing is done automatically, so the user does not see the process in the browser window. […]

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Testing practice

JavaScript in load testing

March 30, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 1 comment

Sometimes people ask if a web load testing tool supports JavaScript. They basically want to know if it is possible to apply the tool to test a web application implemented with JavaScript. The answer is usually obvious. Most load testing tools do not need to execute JavaScript code contained on web pages. This code is executed by the browser when the test is recorded.

So, the only requirement for the load testing tool is that it should be able to record all AJAX requests produces by the JavaScript code on the loaded page. These requests are used to update the page content in the browser. Since they carry additional data, they should be reproduced during the test when the user session is replayed. […]

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Testing practice

Response validation rules

March 11, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 0 comments

In the previous post I wrote about the test verification. The main idea was that before you launch a test you need to check that all your virtual user profiles can be executed correctly. In other words, the execution of a profile should produce a valid user session. It should not end with an error because the profile is incorrectly parameterized. Otherwise instead of the real testing you will simply load the web site with tons of incorrect requests.

One important thing that I also mentioned was that sometimes when a web site receives incorrect data in the request, it replies with the 200 status code contained in the response header, which means success. However at the same time it includes an error message in a human readable form in the body of the same response. […]

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Testing practice WAPT usage

Verifying a test before run

March 9, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 0 comments

Designing a test for a web site with essentially dynamic content may be a rather complex and time consuming task. It is similar to programming in some respect. Even though there are good testing tools that let you automate the process and make it more transparent, still it is hardly […]

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Testing practice WAPT usage

On parameterization

February 14, 2011 by Ivan Lisitsyn 12 comments

To create a load test we record a typical user session with help of a browser and a load testing tool. We want to use that session as a template to emulate hundreds or even thousands users working with our web site simultaneously. Our load testing tool will replay the […]

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On Web Load Testing