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Before learning about tools of performance testing, lets understand -
What is Performance Testing?
Performance testing is the process of determining the speed, effectiveness, reliability, scalability and interoperability of the system, computer, network, program or application . The process can also check two or more application to compare system speed, data transfer rate, bandwidth, efficiency and reliability.
Can we do performance testing manually?
Its extremely difficult to find performance related information manually and check the system response.Best option is to use performance testing tool available in the market.
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Performance Testing Tools:
Tool is a must for performance testing .Following are tools available in market for testing:
Commercial Tools:
HP Performance Tester (Load Runner)
This is an enterprise performance testing version of LoadRunner and a platform enabled both global standardization and formation Performance CoE.
Protocols:
All protocols are supported by Load Runner
Pros and Cons of HP Performance Tester tool:
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Pros
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Cons
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Lower the cost of distributed load testing
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Scale from single projects to a full-scale testing Center of Excellence (CoEs) that consolidates hardware, standardizes best practices and leverages global testing resources
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Reduce the risk of deploying systems that do not meet performance requirements through the use of effective enterprise load testing
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Lower hardware and software costs by accurately predicting system capacity
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Pinpoint the root cause of application performance problems quickly and accurately
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Effective tool utilization tracking
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Browser based access to global test resources and optimal usage of load generator farm.
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Expensive compared to LoadRunner perpetual licenses
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Additional investments needed to procure licenses for new protocol support
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SaaS:The licensing model requires procuring “Controllers” &”Vusers pack” separately. For concurrent test execution, multiple “Controllers” have to be procured which may be expensive.
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Requires 24*7 support for technical assistance during execution
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Borland SilkPerformer
Silkperformer tool is an enterprise class load and stress testing tool and has ability to test multiple application environments with the thousands of concurrent users. It also supports widest range of protocols.
Features:
There are good features in silkperformer and those are listed as follows:
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Components
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Workbench
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True Log Explorer
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Performance Explorer
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Requires minimum hardware resources for virtual user simulation
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Simulates modifiable virtual users
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Generates reports with tables and graphs and allows customization.
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Supports six models of workloads.
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Provides Agent Health Control
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Server side diagnostics
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Resource Management
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Version Control Management
Protocols
Following are the good number of protocols supported by silk performer of Borland Corporation:
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App. Server/Component Model:
Oracle Forms; CORBA; EJB; .NET Remoting; Tuxedo; Jacada;
Web Services:
XML/SOAP; .NET
ERP/CRM:
PeopleSoft 8; Siebel; SAP GUI
Wireless:
WAP; i-Mode; Radius
Unit Testing:
Junit; N-Unit; .NET
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Web:
HTTP/HTML; HTTPS/HTML; HTTP/HTTPS; Flash;
Internet:
Email (SMTP/ POP); FTP; TCP/IP; LDAP
Terminal Services:
Citrix Metaframe
Databases:
Oracle; DB2; CLI; ODBC; ADO;
Frame Works:
JAVA; .NET; Visual Basic
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Pros and Cons of the tool:
Following discusses on the pros and cons of the silk performer tools:
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Pros
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Cons
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Supports integrated server monitoring
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Customer friendly licensing
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Correlation and Parameterization is user friendly
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No License requirement for Controllers or Individual Protocols
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Handles Load Test in Project approach
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Pacing time feature is not readily available
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Setting up Ramp down Pattern is not easy
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Rational Performance Tester
Rational Performance Tester(RPT) is a performance and load testing tool developed by IBM Corporation. It is performance test creation, execution, and analysis tool that helps development team to validate the scalability and reliability of web based applications before deployment into production.
Features:
There are good features which give confident to the users that all performance related bottlenecks are resolved. Following are some of the features of this tool:
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No coding involved
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Scheduled and event based testing
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Real time reporting for immediate performance problem identification
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Run with large multi users tests
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Accurate user profile workloads
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Automated test data variation
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Automatic identification of dynamic server responses
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Rendered HTML view of web pages visited during test recordings
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Environment and Platform support
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Entrust security protocol support
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Java code insertion for customization
Protocols:
Some of the protocols supported by RPT are:
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Citrix
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Socket Recording
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Web HTTP
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SOA
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SAP
Pros and Cons of RPT
Following are the PROS and CONS of the application;
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Pros
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Cons
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Supports XML
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No Programming knowledge required
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Automatic Correlation
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Diagnostics of Websphere and Weblogic application servers
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Java Applet based applications not supported
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Ramp up or Ramp down of resources not possible
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Scheduling is not possible
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Random selection of daya in parameter files are not available
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Open Source tools:
Apache Jmeter
JMeter is an open source tool that can be used for performance and load testing for analyzing and measuring the performance of variety of services. This tools mainly used for web and web service applications.
Features:
This tool doesn’t demand state of art infrastructure for load testing and supports multiple load injectors managed by a single controller
Protocols
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Web : HTTP, HTTPS
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WebServices : XML, SOAP, etc.
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Java based protocols
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FTP
Pros and Cons of JMeter:
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Pros
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Cons
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Highly portable and supports 100% all the Java based apps
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Less scripting efforts as compared to other tools because of its user friendly GUI
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Simple charts and graphs sufficient for analyzing key load related statistics and resource usage monitors.
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Supports Integrated real-time, Tomcat collectors for Monitoring
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Cannot record HTTPS Communication
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Cannot intercept the AJAX traffic
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Is not capable of monitoring any of Application server related statistics
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Reporting framework has very limited features
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Factors considered for selection of Performance tools:
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We have to consider some factors while selecting performance tools. Factors are as follows:
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Customer Preference tool
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Availability of license within customer machine
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Additional protocol support
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Availability of test environment
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Efficiency of tool
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License Cost
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User Options for testing
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Vendor support (IBM, Borland, HP support)
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Technology V/s Performance Tools:
Following list down the choice of tools for each technology that we are going to test:
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Technology/Protocols/Model
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Selection of tools
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SOA
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Load Runner
Silk performer
SOA Test
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SAP
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Load Runner
Silk Performer
Rational Performance Tester
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Peoplesoft, oracle
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Load Runner
Silk performer
Rational Performance Tester
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.Net and Desktop Client
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Load Runner
Silk Performer
VSTS
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Citrix related applications
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Load Runner
Silk Performer
Rational Performance Tester
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Web based applications
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Load Runner
Silk Performer
JMeter
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CoE Operational Model
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Performance Center
Load Runner
Silk Performer
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Java
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SLAMD
Lobo
CLIF
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OS Independent
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Soap Stone
p-unit
Benerator
Allmon
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Linux
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Curl-loader
D-ITG
DOTS
Hammerhead
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Javascript
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Raw Load Tester
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Cross Platform
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Ostinato
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Conclusion:
Thus, we concluded that performance testing tools is helping us to reduce risks and minimize costs. This is surely a complex testing which involved objectives of testing, cost, resources involved and potential return.
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