HP LoadRunner and Performance Center Blog : LoadRunner

Video: How LoadRunner Works

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:49:00 GMT

Sure, I know that we already posted a screen-shot video about LoadRunner Walkthrough , but it might also be nice to share another video whiteboard session to introduce HP LoadRunner and how the individual components of HP LoadRunner and HP Diagnostics...(read more)

Understanding the language of hosted load testing

mark.tomlinson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:19:00 GMT

I recently got an email from a colleague which was an invitation from a testing service vendor which does load testing on "The Cloud" (internet-hosted testing service). The invitation included some misleading language about load testing that...(read more)

Testing is Back on the Charts

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:47:00 GMT

...and Quality sounds better than ever! The latest release entitled Here Comes Science from the Grammy-winning duo They Might Be Giants (John Linnell and John Flansburgh) includes a track called "Put It to the Test" which celebrates the enthusiasm...(read more)

Update: 15-hours into the Non-stop HP Virtual Conference

mark.tomlinson — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:29:00 GMT

*original post was at 11:30pm on 9/29/2009* Okay - so I've been working the Worldwide HP Virtual Conference: Functional, Performance and Security Testing for about 15 hours now - nearly non-stop and I've had some great chat sessions with customers...(read more)

The LoadRunner Non-stop HP Virtual Conference

mark.tomlinson — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:55:00 GMT

THE TIME HAS COME!! I really don't want you to miss the Worldwide HP Virtual Conference: Functional, Performance and Security Testing in Today’s Application Reality. And just to show you how committed I am to you and to the conference, I'm...(read more)

What are the Goals of Performance Testing?

sfeloney — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:44:00 GMT

So what is the point of performance testing? I get this question often. And depending on who you talk to, you get different answers. First let me begin by telling you what are NOT the goals of performance testing / validation. Writing a great script Creating...(read more)

HP Performance Engineering Best Practices Series

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:41:00 GMT

Just to let you know that we've been putting together some published practices for LoadRunner and Performance Testing...and the electronic version of the book(s) are available free of charge!

This one is "Performance Monitoring Best Practices" authored by Leo Borisov from our LoadRunner R&D team. Leo sent along this description and instructions for downloading the book:

"We have always recognized the fact that having best practices and methodology would greatly simplify the life of performance engineers and managers, and now we are beginning to fill this need. The book is available with the SP1 installation. Access it from the product documentation library, or from the help menu.

To download a copy from the hp software support site:

go to http://h20230.www2.hp.com/selfsolve/manuals
log in using an hp passport or register first at and then log in
in the list of hp software product manuals choose either LoadRunner or Performance Center – the book is listed under both
select product version: 9.51 and operating system: windows
click search

Since this is the first book in the series covering various aspects of methodology, we would really appreciate your feedback. Please send your feedback directly to me or lt_cust_feedback @ hp.com."

Congratulations Leo - thanks for your efforts!

Video: Running LoadRunner Virtualized

mark.tomlinson — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:23:00 GMT

If you've ever needed to understand how LoadRunner should be implemented in a virtual environment, you should enjoy this video walkthrough explaining the best practices to do just that. Make a specific note about how your Iteration Pacing and Think Time settings really effect the health, scalability and accuracy of your load test.

(if your browser doesn't show the video in-line, just click here)

Video: Ten Virtual Users Just Aren't Enough

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:28:00 GMT

And the Rolling Stones once sang a song, “You can’t always get what you want” – but that should all make sense when you watch this video about stress testing.

(if your browser doesn't show the video in-line, just click here)

HP Software Universe Online

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:05:00 GMT

If you missed our awesome gathering at HP Software Universe 2009, here’s your chance to get the session information from the private and quiet comfort of your own computer.

HP Software Universe Online, offers:

· Session PDFs and audiocast recordings to more than 180 presentations delivered by HP experts, customers, and partners. Topics included implementation best practices, new releases, and product roadmaps.

· Partner literature—white papers and product briefs—from one of the dozens of our strategic partners.

· Live, on-demand webcasts featuring product-migration information, tips and tricks, best practices, and product launches

Click on the link here to go to the registration page.

Video: LoadRunner Walk-through

mark.tomlinson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Here's a great introductory video that explains how LoadRunner's different applications work together. It will give new users a look at the Virtual User Generator, Controller and Analysis tools - and how they generally work.

Learn: what can you really get out of a Performance CoE

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:25:00 GMT

I've been working in centralized performance testing organizations for more than 6 years, giving presentations and consulting on Perf CoE - to the point where I didn't think there was much more to learn. Then I read the preliminary research from Theresa Lanowitz who digs deeper into the true value of doing centralized performance testing. There is compelling new evidence to show the real value that our customers are finding, the clear benefits and some of the hidden value.

Please consider attending this session from Theresa Lanowitz, founder of voke Inc., as she presents the findings of a recent Market Snapshot on Performance Centers of Excellence. In this presentation, she will discuss:

Building a performance CoE
Achieving performance CoE ROI – qualitative and quantitative
Gaining organizational maturity through a performance CoE
Realizing the benefits, results, and strategic value of a performance CoE

Attendees will receive a copy of the voke "Market SnapshotTM Report: Performance Center of Excellence."

Click here to Register

Managing Changes – Web 2.0, where's your shame

mark.tomlinson — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:08:00 GMT

Oh, this strange fascination started in 2004 when they coined this new generation of ‘web development’ called Web 2.0. I witnessed this evolution of technology from my seat in steerage at Microsoft as customers switched from the old Active Architecture (remember Windows DNA?) to the warm impermanence .NET and J2EE architectures for web applications. Out with the old and in with the new, but the performance problems were generally the same – memory management, caching, compression, heap fragmentation, connection pooling, and so on. It might have had a new name, but it was the same people making the same mistakes. Back then we dismissed some of these new architecture as unproven or non-standard. But that didn’t last long. Now almost 5 years later with Web 2.0, any major player in the software industry that hasn’t adopted the latest web architectures is being spit on as being plainly outdated or stuck with the label of being traditional.

When it comes to testing tools and Web 2.0, I think that “traditional” does not equate to obsolete – no matter how some of the “youngsters” in the testing tool market may like to imply. The software industry is competitive, certainly and I think new companies and software should just evangelize the positive innovations they have and then the facts can speak for themselves. If the ‘old guys’ can’t support new Web 2.0 stuff…then it will be obvious soon enough. For instance, if a new testing tool company doesn’t fully support AJAX clients it’s just unacceptable at this point.

However, I do believe it is fair game to evaluate existing software solutions (pre-Web 2.0) on how well they can be adapted to support newer innovations in technology. As for LoadRunner, I think we have a long history of adapting and embracing every new technology that has come along. I started using LoadRunner with X-Motif systems running on Solaris. That era and generation of technology is long since died (no offense intended to Motif or Sun). Today, the same concepts for record, replay , execution, scripting, and analysis are still innovative and very relevant. As long as the idea for the product is still valid, you can still deliver a valid product.

Adapting to changes here in LoadRunner we usually start with overcoming the technical hurdles for creating a new virtual user, or updating an existing one. And as I stated above, we have a long and rich history of doing this – probably more than any other testing tool. As an example, in versions 9.0, 9.1 and 9.5 we have continued to improve our support for AJAX, Flex and Asynchronous applications. We respond to change quite well and even if we take some extra time to evaluate every aspect of what this ‘new web’ change means to our customers. It’s worth getting right and not being swayed by the hype of the ‘Web 2.0’ label.

Let me finish by stating that these new web technologies as challenge to testing tools, but it’s even more of a change to testers. I’ve heard that many-a-tester gets a surprise by the next version of the AUT which secretively has implemented new Web 2.0 architecture or even started using web services calls to a SOA. Change is a surprise only if you’re unaware or unconscious. Sure, it would be a failure to not communicate to QA that there were some significant technology changes coming, right? To some, this would sound too familiar. Like an institutionalized version of “throw it over the wall” behavior, but honestly these new technologies (like AJAX) have been around for nearly 5 years now.

As for most testers, here’s a thanks to Web 2.0 – “You've left us up to our necks in it!”

Video: Understanding Iteration Pacing

mark.tomlinson — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:57:00 GMT

I recently got a question about LoadRunner’s Iteration Pacing configuration which is part of the Virtual User Run-time settings. The best way to illustrate the difference between think times and iteration pacing is to show you in a video whiteboard session.

(if your browser doesn't show the video in-line, just click here)

Hey EMC – how’s it feel to run a 100,000 user benchmark?

mark.tomlinson — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:42:00 GMT

Back in November 2008 we got a phone call from our long-time customers at EMC Documentum. They were going to attempt a very large load test pushing their solution scalability to 10-times their normal volume. This would be an absolutely huge test for the Documentum system and they believed that it would be the world’s largest Enterprise Content Management (ECM) benchmark ever to succeed.

Of course they wanted LoadRunner to run 100,000 virtual users. And they needed lots and lots of HP hardware and storage.

So, we’ve got some good friends up in the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center and we all got together to deliver this massive test. And recently we published all the results and a cool video that explains how the testing was accomplished.

Check out the EMC benchmark results here!

The surprising thing to us was the LoadRunner Controller performance on the latest HP commodity hardware. It did really well at running 50k vusers and probably more than that if we had more memory. Also, when you consider the whole system they were testing it didn’t take much hardware at all to deliver sub-second performance for 100k user load. And don’t forget – the database was SQL Server 2008, the latest release from Microsoft. You can see a picture of the 64 CPU’s on the SQL database Craig’s blog.

Congrats EMC and SQL Server…it’s nice to see super scalable systems in action!