The document discusses the importance of load testing for web applications, highlighting the impact of performance on user satisfaction and revenue loss. It outlines types of load testing, setting expectations, and methodologies for conducting effective tests, including internal and external testing strategies. A sample scenario for testing an online shopping cart application with 10,000 concurrent users is also provided, showcasing how different user activities are categorized for testing purposes.

1. Real World Problems,
Real World Load Testing
Jim Holmes
Evangelist, Test Studio
@aJimHolmes
http://bit.ly/JimAtTestStudio
Jim.Holmes@Telerik.com

2. Recent News…

3. What the CEO/customer wants:
“Can our site survive as we grow?”
“Will our users be happy when the system’s
being used?”

4. The cost of degraded performance
“According to a 2008 Aberdeen Group study, a 1-second delay
in page load time equals 11 percent fewer page views, a 16
percent decrease in customer satisfaction, and a 7 percent
loss in conversions. In dollar terms, this means that if a site
typically earns $100,000 a day, this year you could lose $2.5
million in sales for every second slower your site is compared
to last year (or, for that matter, compared to your
competitor’s website).” -- Web Load Testing for Dummies

5. What’s on the menu
• Types of Load Testing
• Setting Expectations
• What
• Where
• How
• Demo!

6. Types of Load Testing

7. Soak Testing

8. Failover / Tip Testing

9. Load Testing

10. Set Expectations Early
• What are our realistic goals?
• “Do we really need to support China when we will
only serve our neighborhood?” -- @BenCarey
• Need People, Hardware, TIME
• What’s on the table for fixing?

11. WHERE do we test?
• Internal
• Lets us focus on system behavior
• Hardware, cache, app itself
• External
• Focus is on overall system, usability

12. WHAT do we test?
• Existing site? Learn the traffic patterns.
• How do users use your site?
• Got history? Hit your web server logs, eg
• Build your scenarios to mimic
• Think times
• Ramp up

13. HOW do we test?
• Control the environment
• Change ONE THING at a time
• Automate setup & config
• Baseline data
• System config
• Flush caches, app pools, etc
• Warmup scripts

14. A Sample Load Test
An online shopping cart application is required to support 10,000 concurrent users
broken out into following activities:
• 7500 Virtual Users (VU’s) log in, browse through items and then log off.
• 1250 VU’s log in, add items to their shopping cart, check out and then log off.
• 750 VU’s log in, request RMA and then log off.
• 500 VU’s just log in without any subsequent activity.
*Each of the below is classified as a ‘User Profile’ or ‘Scenario’.
-Wikipedia

15. How We Do It.
Test Studio
(create, execute)
Controller /
Reporter
Agent
(Generates Load / VU’s)
Agent
(Generates Load / VU’s)
Agent
(Generates Load / VU’s)
Application

16. Virtual User
Agent
(Generates Load /
VU’s)
Application
HTTP(S) Request to Server
HTTP(S) Response from Server
HTTP(S) Request to Server
HTTP(S) Response from Server

18. Jim Holmes
Jim.Holmes@telerik.com
@aJimHolmes
@telerik | facebook.com/telerik