SUBMITTED TO PROF.

RICK THOMSON

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Introduction
LoadRunner is a software testing tool developed by Mercury. The
tool was later acquired by HP.This software tool is extensively
used in software testing market to perform performance testing. It
is estimated that 85% of testing market share is held by HP
LoadRunner. It is user to test 3 tier software applications.
LoadRunner is gaining popularity as it supports a set of
development tools, technologies and a huge suite of network
protocol.HP has taken efforts to merge LoadRunner with QTP
(Quick Test Professional) and ALM (Application Lifecycle
Management).
Load runner is mainly used to perform the performance testing.
Performance testing is done to check the overall performance of
the system under load. A lot of people and system are required to
create load, and hence it is a constrain. It is very difficult to create
it. Load runner creates any number of virtual users, so it can be
successfully used for doing the performance testing. Its working is
as follows:
Components of load runner:-

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VU
GENRATOR
CONTROLLER

Analyzer

Architecture
LoadRunner is a complicated piece of software. It can be broadly
classified into the following components:
VUGenerator
Controller
Analyser

VU Generator

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It helps to write script and helps to generate a set of virtual users.

These VUGenerator are high end machines that hold large
memory and faster processing speed. The Scripts are designed to
emulate the real life scenarios into the testing environment. An
environment may have a single or a set of VUGenerator based on
the system under testing.

Controller

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It is the manager of the LoadRunner. It centrally controls all the

virtual users and scripts created by the VUGenerator.The other
important feature of Controller is that it records aspects like
throughput, processing speed. Memory consumption and other
aspects in real time.

Analyser
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It is a component that analyses the recorded information during

test execution and provides report in graphical or other means of
presentation. The Analyser component may be integrated with
the Controller or may stand as a separate entity.

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Lifecycle
Phase-1
In the initial phase, planning on how to conduct the testing is
done. Aspects like what kind of performance testing like
endurance testing, volume testing should be done, what all
functionalities to be tested and covered, what is the system
requirements and what are the expected outputs etc. should be
ascertained.
Phase-2
In the second phase, virtual users and scripts are developed by
the VUGenerator.The scripts developed are based on the system
under consideration, keeping in mind the various possibilities
associated with the system.
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Phase-3
In this phase the focus is on developing scenarios and allocating
virtual users to various functionalities associated with the system
under testing. For example, if we are testing the performance of
Yahoo Server, we have to think of scenarios like 2000 are using
the yahoo mail service,3500 are using yahoo search and 740 are
browsing yahoo news at the same time and accordingly allot
virtual users to it.
Phase-4
This is the implementation phase where the previously designed
scenarios are implemented and the process is recorded in real
time by the controller component to be analysed in the future.
Phase-5
This is the analyse and report generation phase. In this phase the
Analyser component analyses the recorded results and cross
checks with the expected result. If a deviation is found between
the two results, the system is asked to be retuned and phase 4
and phase 5 are repeated until the deviation between results is
narrowed down to minimum.

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Advantages

Infrastructure Requirement goes down.

Real-time testers are replaced by virtual ones
Time and Effort Saving
Easy Test Repeatability
Supports a large suite of Network Protocols
Tightly Integrated with QTP and ALM
3. How it works?
Lets start from the VU Generator

In VU Generator, we just click the record

button and then
this is going to start the recording by using actions ,application
and for URL we have given www.google.com to navigate or to
start recording on this page.
1. Recording

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2.
After clicking recording button to directly goes to web server to
record the actions.

3.

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HTML Code is generated to explain the recording. Moreover, it

shows the number of actions performed.

HP LOAD Controller:
1.By adding a script name in controller with the help of browse
option and web html file is selected.

Load generator: which will help to connect the controller with

load generator. By clicking on load generator button it will show
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the different button and then we have to click on connect button.

Finally it will convert from down to ready button.

By running on different times with different and users. This run

time setting will help to find the different actions and users too.

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Run logic: This is basically is check that how many times actions
have been taken place.
log time :It will help to generate a log message and first run
failed.
Think time: This is the stop time in between step just to do
interaction with application by user. So during the load test the
counterpart will improve the work accuracy more by taking so
thinking time.

To check whether system is under load:

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LOAD TEST

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We can check the performance of server, different tiers and

system modules. To do a load testing we have Scenario groups,
different graphs such as Runtime graph, transaction graph, Web
resource graph to measure the

LOAD RUNNER ANALYSIS:

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This is to analyse the data and there are number of panes in this:
Session explorer
Graph viewing
Graph viewing
Properties

Properties

The data in this section is analysed with help of graphs by

drawing average response time vs Elapsed scenario time in the
graph. Moreover, the session explorer helps in viewing all the
opened files , reports. Graphs etc.
QUES:3 Who would use this?
Load
runner
supports
various
development
tools,
technologies and communication protocols. In fact, it is the
only toll which supports such a large number of protocols.
It supports RIA, WEB 2.0, HTTP/HTML, AJAX, FLEX,
SILVERLIGHT, SAP, ORACLE, MS SQL SERVER, CITRIX, RTE,
MAIL, and WINDOWS.
It is highly credible.
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It is also integrated with QTP and ALM

QUES.4:-how it would help in the final analysis to

determine whether an application is ready or not for
production?
The controller first transfers the scripts to the load generator
machines. A script is a virtual machine and the load generator
machine is a highly configured computer. When the test is
started, many number of workers goes to the server while running
on the virtual users on the load generators. This emulates
production traffic. During testing, the controller retrieves data
from the server and make it into the graphical form. To check the
performance for a large number of user is to assign virtual users
because it is difficult to have large number of human users.
Virtual users are software which simulates real user who can
access a website and perform operations.
To manage the different users in different pages of the website,
we use VUGen. It is an IDE, which replicate system under load
(SUL). It has a recording feature, which records actions performed
under load in the form of a script. This recording can be replayed.
The load is controlled by the controller. It controls the load by
managing how many users simulate against each business
process. All these together determines whether the application is
ready or not for production.
After the test, results obtained can be used for analysis for the
performance issues.

References
http://lrhelp.saas.hp.com/en/latest/help/WebHelp/Content/Tutorial/
Images/Load_testing_process.png (image.2015)

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http://image.slidesharecdn.com/loadrunnerintroduction100612000219-phpapp01/95/what-is-loadrunner-5-728.jpg?
cb=1386039990(image.2015)
(Unknown.2016) VU Gen retrieved from (Unknown.2016)
Introduction retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=AicAqUC0K6Q
(Unknown.2016)
working
retrieved
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOLoXxXMbfA

from

(Unknown.2016) Introduction retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L3xagVuTMQ
(Unknown.2016) Introduction retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=oOLoXxXMbfA&list=PLCYqwbyDA33Q0tTm2nc3EqVBQEdemxZ
1v

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