WAPTA load testing solution for web sites

What is load testing?In short, it is a simulation of multiple users visiting a web site at the same time and working with it concurrently.

Such general definition makes load testing a blanket term for several different types of testing.

Types of load testing

Performance testing

Capacity testing

Endurance testing

Volume testing

Stress testing

Regression testing

Types of load testing

Performance testing

We gradually increase the load by adding more and more virtual users to the test and check the performance parameters of the system at any test phase.

The main things we monitor are:

• Web site response time;• Number of processed requests per second;• Error rate.

Types of load testing

Capacity testing

This type of test replies to the most common question in load testing: how many concurrent users the web site can handle while maintaining good response time and error rate.

Again, we add virtual users gradually, but in this case we know the performance criteria in advance and just need to check that they are observed.

Types of load testing

A typical problem revealed by a performance or capacity test is a bottleneck. Even though it is mostly a technical term, it can be thought of as a thin section within the data workflow.

Your web application can consist of several modules used to process requests. If one of them has a technical limitation, it limits the performance of the whole system.

Types of load testing

Stress testing

Every system has a capacity limit. When the load goes beyond it, the web site starts responding very slowly and even produce errors.

The purposes of stress testing are:

• Find the capacity limit;• Check that when it is reached, the web site handles the stress correctly:

produces graceful overload notifications and does not crash;• When the load is reduced back to regular level, the web site returns to

normal operation retaining the performance characteristics.

Types of load testing

Volume testing

If your application can upload files, upload the largest ones. If it does the search, try generating long results.

Try to maximize the amount of processed data and the complexity of each transaction. This will be the volume testing.

Types of load testing

Endurance testing

This type of testing (also called “soak testing”) is used to check that the system can stand the load for a long time or a large number of transactions.

It usually reveals various types of resource allocation problems. If a small memory leak is present, it is not evident on a quick test, but will influence the performance after a long time.

For endurance testing it is recommended to use changing periodic load to provoke resource reallocation.

Types of load testing

Regression testing

Make the load testing a part of your regular development process by creating regression load tests and applying them to every new version of your application.

Types of load testing

Performance testing

Capacity testing

Endurance testing

Volume testing

Stress testing

Regression testing

Many testing goals – one solution

WAPTYou can design tests as easy as using a browser. Just navigate through the web site to record a user session. WAPT will replay it with thousands virtual users during the test.

• No scripting is necessary.• No programming background is required.• The efficiency of your work is our priority.

WAPTEach session is recorded to a virtual user profile as a sequence of HTTP requests. You can select a profile and edit its properties.

In the same view you can select a request and edit its parameters, headers, page elements and other options.

WAPTThe test may include different profiles to emulate different types of users.

The load is flexibly specified: you can select how many users of each type should participate.

WAPTAnd you can make the number of virtual users change. This way you can emulate different types of load.

It can be constant throughout the test…

Growing…

Or periodic.

WAPTAutomatic cookie and session variables handling will make each user session correct and realistically emulated.

WAPTWith couple clicks you can create data-driven tests by specifying different names, passwords and input data for different users.

WAPTYou can test secure HTTPs pages and web sites requiring all types of authentication and client certificates.

WAPTOn the test completion you get the report containing comprehensive statistical information, including response times, throughput parameters, bandwidth usage, errors appeared at each test phase and much more.

WAPTYou are not limited to analyzing rows of numbers with statistical data. WAPT can represent it in form of dynamic resizable charts.

Using them, you can track down the correlation of any performance parameters with the created load at any test moment.

WAPTWhen your web application starts producing errors on test execution, you may need to have the detailed information on each user session and each request in order to track down the problem.

In WAPT this information can be fully logged during the test and represented in a convenient structured form after the test completion. You can easily navigate between users, sessions and reported errors.

WAPT ProMany of our customers use load testing on a regular basis as a part of their development process. They often need to perform the testing from different locations and create significant test load emulating thousands users.

To address the need for a more powerful, flexible and precise testing tool we offer the professional version of our product.

It can use several systems for load generation, overcoming any limits for the maximum emulated test load.

But this is not the only benefit…

WAPT ProWAPT Pro consists of the workplace component and multiple load agents that can be installed anywhere and managed remotely.

Such location independent distributed configuration makes WAPT Pro an ideal cloud-ready solution.

WAPT ProThese days a typical web site may include multiple components, such as load balancers, web servers, application servers, databases, etc.

When applying a load test to such a complex system, the classical black-box approach will hardly work. To track down the performance problems, isolate bottlenecks and optimize the hardware configuration, it is often required to monitor the behavior of each system component under load.

WAPT Pro uses WMI and SNMP interfaces to collect the exhaustive performance information directly from each server and database.

WAPT ProWeb sites featuring rich AJAX content often require advanced parameterization techniques. WAPT Pro guarantees that any such web site can be fully tested by providing a possibility to prepare dynamic request parameters and post-process server responses with help of custom JavaScript code.

While the Pro version follows the same intuitive GUI approach to the test creation and execution, it adds the scripting possibility for advanced users as an option that can be selectively applied.

WAPT Extension Modules

The benefits provided by these modules include:

• Support for binary data formats;• Visual representation of embedded

structures;• Automatic parameterization of

protocol-specific data.

As more and more new technologies are becoming standards for web development, we are working hard to address the requirements for load testing of RIA (Rich Internet Application) web sites.

For each specific technology we create a special module that extends the capabilities of our products.

WAPT Extension ModulesRight now we have the following modules available:

Module for ASP.NET testing

Module for Adobe® Flash® testing

Module for JSON format

More coming soon…

Thank you!!