Hi Fay,
I have used a few of them, it depends on your budget and how detailed you
want to do the tests.
Tools I have used.
* Mercury / Load Runner - $100K++
* Etest - $50K
* WAPT - $500
* Jmeter / OpenSTA - Open Source - Free
* Rational Functional Teater - $14k
* Action Word Lists - Custom tool
The difference in the tools is:
* The amount of information you can collect from a host of different
systems at once.
* Ease of use.
* Ease of Script re-use.
Example:
I use WAPT a lot as it is simple to use.
Create a new load test, Press record, walk through the web
site, end recording, Now repeat xxx Times for multiple scripts.
Then view results from the load.
* You will see lots of colourful graphs and loads and see the system
slow to a halt if you apply enough load.
* The Information that WAPT provides will be what it can see via the
Browser.
* This assumes the load test is testing one big web based
application.
* You will find your maximum load the system can bare before it slow,
stops or crashes.
* That is fine, but if you want to locate your bottle necks you need
to go further.
Note: Many load testing tools use Web based Auto scripting, which is really
easy to create but breaks easy as well when you make a minor change.
Script re-useability is always difficult with most tools.
We have built Action Frameworks with IBM Rational Functional
tester, which improves the script re-usability but takes a lot of time to
establish and cost.
The costs depends on the amount of Scripts you want and the
complexity. (Approx $50K for us)
We now use this tool for Regression testing mostly and WAPT
for Load testing new Code as it is easy and cheap.
How I did my Load Tests when testing PeopleSoft Campus/CRM
Computer A - Load Testing Tool
WAPT tool was used to generate Load using various scripts focusing on likely
bottle necks.
Only needed one Computer to
generate 800 Concurrent users and I focused the load on a Particular Web
Server. (We had 2 web servers to test)
Later we used a few computers
to test the load balancing of the multiple web nodes.
Computer B: Windows Server Monitoring
Using another Computer we monitored all Windows systems which will have a
load applied to them the:
* Disk / Memory and CPU activity of all windows boxes using
performance tool in windows.
* In XP (START/Programs/Administrative Tools/Performance)
Computer C: LINUX Servers Monitoring
Using another Computer monitor all Windows systems which will have a load
applied to them the:
* Disk / Memory and CPU activity of all windows boxes using TOP.
Computer D: Peoplesoft Monitoring using Web Server tools.
* We have WebLogic which includes a Monitoring application to view
Load and Web performance.
So basically the Load testing tool applies the load, and you use the other
computers to see what part of the system is actually getting hammered.
You quickly figure out if you have a :
Disk I/O issue
CPU Issue
Web Configuration issue
Etc etc
Hope it helps.
Good luck.
Anthony Russo
Director of IT
Open Universities Australia
T +613 8628 2540
F +613 8628 2900
M +614 048 99 871
E
anthony.russo@open.edu.auwww.open.edu.auFrom: Farid Vaswani [
mailto:f.vaswani@auckland.ac.nz]Sent: Monday, 7 March 2011 4:23 PM
To:
anz.heug@list.heug.orgSubject: [anz.heug] - RE: Performance/Load testing tools
Hi Fay,
We at University of Auckland have successfully used Jmeter for our HR and
Campus upgrades. It is a free open-source tool; only expense you have is
finding a good tester.
Happy to train one of your testers if they're keen.
Cheers,
Farid
Farid Vaswani
QA Team Manager
Information Technology Services (ITS)
The University of Auckland
Phone: +64 9 923 5095
Mobile: +64 21 912246
Email:
f.vaswani@auckland.ac.nzFrom: Fay Hester [
mailto:fhester@unitec.ac.nz]Sent: Monday, 7 March 2011 2:21 p.m.
To:
anz.heug@list.heug.orgSubject: [anz.heug] - Performance/Load testing tools
Hi
We are shortly going live with PeopleSoft Financials v9.1 and Campus/HCM
later this year. I wanted to ask if anyone could recommend any
Performance/Load testing tools that they have successfully used.
If you could give indicative costings that would be much appreciated.
I have heard that component interface (CI) could be used in this area and so
any experience/comment on this would also be helpful.
Any advice gratefully received.
Regards
Fay.
Fay Hester
Information Systems Manager
Information Technology
09 8154321 x 6149
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