Automated Performance Testing for Desktop Applications by Ciprian Balea

Automated Performance Testing for Desktop
Applications by Ciprian Balea

2
THE SCARY QUESTION OF APPLICATION
DEVELOPMENT
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How does it perform in real conditions?
Never as first expected!

3
BENCHMARKING
• What impact does the app have on the system running it? (is the system
still reliable)
• How does the app perform when running on the host system? (does it
keep all functionality)
Ideally,
• consuming as little resources as possible without loosing functionality
• the app should not break /slow the system down

4
HOW TO PREDICT THE FUTURE?
Run it multiple times and average out.
A single run doesn’t accurately predict real life usage.

5
HOW TO GET A CREDIBLE RESULT?
Avoid inconsistencies induced by the outside world
=> no Internet connection, own webserver & assets

6
WHAT’S OUR APPLICATION ABOUT?
A Custom Web Browser

7
HARDWARE SETUP

8
BIG PROBLEM #1: HOW TO KNOW HOW
MUCH TIME THE PAGE TOOK TO LOAD
Based on the HTML content, loading time cannot be computed
(element loading order is not consistent across multiple runs).
Small solution:

9
BIG PROBLEM #2: HOW TO READ
SYSTEM RESOURCE USAGE WITHOUT
3RD PARTY TOOLS
Small solution (a):

10
BIG PROBLEM #2: HOW TO READ
SYSTEM RESOURCE USAGE WITHOUT
3RD PARTY TOOLS
Small solution (b):

11
BIG PROBLEM #3: HOW TO MANIPULATE
THE APPLICATION’S GUI
Small solution:

12
WHAT DATA WE COLLECT?
• Test 1
• Webpage load time
• CPU usage
• Memory usage
• Disk I/O
• Test 2
• Timing a “complex” operation

13
TEST 1:
READING SYSTEM
STATISTICS

14
HOW IS THE DATA COLLECTED?
Not at the start of the game
Not at the end of the game
Throughout the
entire game

15
HOW IS THE DATA COLLECTED?

16
RUNNING THE TEST
• One test sequence:
• clear cache
• open the browser
• start reading system data
• load webpage
• close the browser
• save result in an Excel spreadsheet
• Full test:
• Restore the “clean” snapshot of the test
environment
• Automatically runs the test sequence for 1000
times on the native browser
• Automatically runs the test sequence for 1000
times on the custom browser

17
RUNNING THE TEST

18
TEST 2:
TIMING A “COMPLEX”
OPERATION

19
“COMPLEX” OPERATION
Open the browser
Load a webpage
Bookmark page
Go to homepage
Open bookmark
Wait for page to load

20
RESULTS

21
RESULTS

22
CONCLUSIONS
Performance testing is very important as it can reveal
performance flaws.
It is very time and effort consuming to do it manually.
It can be automated with some initial effort, but the
returned value is huge.
Offers very conclusive results on what needs to be
improved in the application to boost performance.

23
Q&A

Automated Performance Testing for Desktop Applications by Ciprian Balea

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