Performance Testing & Working with HP-Load Runner

Introduction

Vamsi Krishna

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance Testing

What?
Why?
Types of Performance Tests
Testing Tools
Performance Testing Process
Introduction to Load Runner

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance Engineering means.?

Performance Engineering is a systematic process of planning, evaluating and optimizing a

systems performance throughout the life cycle of its development.

Goals are to enhance the responsiveness and performance of systems

Performance Engineering is a collection of methods for the support of the performance-oriented

software development of application systems throughout the entire SDLC process to assure an
appropriate performance-related product quality.

Performance Engineering becomes an interface between Software Engineering and Performance

Management.

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance Engineering
Capacity
Planning
Software
Engineering

Performance
Modeling

Performance
Engineering

Performance
Management

Software
Quality
Assurance
Performance

Tuning

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Difference between Performance Engineering & Testing

Performance testing is a subset of Performance Engineering

Performance Testing

Performance Engineering

Evaluates the application

Eliminates issues in the application

Assesses the system

Addresses the issues in the system

Finds problematic areas in the AUT

Fixes problematic areas in the AUT

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance Testing

Performance testing is the process of determining the speed or effectiveness of a computer,

network, software program or device.

Performance test measures how well the application meets the customer expectations in terms
of,

Speed- determines if the application responds quickly

Scalability- determines how much user load the application can handle
Stability- determines if the application is stable under varying loads

Purpose:-

It can demonstrate that the system meets performance criteria

It can compare two systems to find which performs better
It can measure what parts of the system or workload cause the system to perform badly

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

And They Have Paid the Price !

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Revenue

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Reputation, Satisfaction & Productivity

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

It doesnt have to be a Crash!

10

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Why Performance Testing is needed?

11

Will my application meet the defined response-time requirements of my customers?

Will my users experience acceptable response times, even during peak hours?
What system capacity is required to handle expected load?
Where are the bottlenecks in my multi-user environment?
How can we detect errors that only occur under real-load conditions?
How can we optimize the multi-user application before it goes live?

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Manufacturing Company

Why Performance Testing is needed? Example1

Application is in production
Doesnt support more than 10 users
Response times are not acceptable
Resource utilization is very high
Customers are not happy
Business Impact
Application is performing well for single user
How Do you Know the Problem?

Need to test the application with more load.

Monitor the system and identify the issue
Fix the problem
Avoid performance issues before rolling out to production

12

Why Performance Testing is Needed ?

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance is Important
(>120 sec.)
Timeout

Crash!

Virtually
Offline
(> 30 sec.)
Web Site
Response
Time

Unacceptable
(15 30 sec.)
Borderline
(9 15 sec.)

The 8 Second Barrier

Good
(0 - 8 sec.)
Web Site Load
(Number of concurrent users)

13

System Under Test

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Production Environment
Operating
Systems

Database

Test Environment
Operating
Systems

Database

External
Storage

Web/App
Servers

Front End
GUI

Application

External
Storage

Web/App
Servers
Front
End GUI

Application

Test Environment capacity ideally equal to production capacity

14

Response Time
Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Load Injector

App
Server

DB Server

Time in which the system responds for a particular

Transaction request.
e.g., Time required for Processing a search request .

15

Think Time
Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

It is the pausing or navigation time between two user actions.

Time taken for submitting a new Transaction after the response for
the previous Transaction has been received

Transaction 1
Think Time = 10 Seconds
Transaction 2

16

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Transaction Time

17

Transaction time is the time taken to finish the specific task.

Workload
Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Operating
Systems

Database

Typical Workload
No. of Users

External
Storage

Transactions

Web Servers /
Application
Servers

Transaction mix
Batch Programs

Front End
GUI

The System

18

Transaction Mix
Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Banking Application

Varying execution frequency of different Transactions

19

Throughput
Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

The amount of work that can be performed by a

system or component in a given period of time

Transactions per Second

Hits/sec

20

Web Interactions per Second

Pages per Second

Bytes per Second

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Find the behavior and performance of each tier

Component Testing

Find out whether the system can handle the expected load upon
deployment under real-world conditions

Load Testing

Find the systems breaking point. Apply testing that measures

whether the systems environment is properly configured to handle
expected or potentially unexpected high transaction volumes.

Stress Testing

Ex1. To determine the max no of Transactions/sec

Ex2. To determine at what capacity the non critical services will be
shutdown

Find the stability of the system with respect to handling large

amount of data over extended time periods

Volume Testing

Ex:-Airtel
No of Airtel customers X no of calls X no of days X no of months
in year

21

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance Test Objectives

Application Response time

Reliability
How stable is the system under
heavy work load?

Capacity Planning
At what point does degradation in
performance occur?

Bottleneck Identification
what is the cause of degradation
in performance

Product Evaluation
what is the best server for 1000
users

How long does it take to complete a

task?

Configuration sizing
which configuration provides the
best performance level?

Acceptance
Is the system stable enough to go
into production?

Regression
Does the new version of the
software adversely affect response
time?

22

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

When Is Load Testing Needed?

Planning and Design

Evolution
How many users can be
added without decreasing
system performance?

What is the best server to

support 1000 users?

Development
Does the system response
time meet requirements?

Production
What is the cause of
performance degradation?

23

Deployment
Is the system reliable enough
to go into production?

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Manual Testing Is Problematic

Do you have the testing resources?
Testing personnel
Client machines

All of you,
click the GO
button again

How do you synchronize users?

How do you collect and analyze results?

How do you achieve test repeatability?

Coordinator

Web server

Testers

Database
server

Internet
Load Generation

24

System Under Test

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

The LoadRunner Solution

Controller

Overcomes resource limitations

Analysis

Replaces testers with Virtual Users

Runs many Vusers on few machines
Controller manages the Vusers

Meaningful results with analysis tools

Repeatable tests with scripted actions

Vuser
host

Web server

Database
server

Internet
Vusers
Load Generation
25

System Under Test

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

What does LoadRunner Do?

LoadRunner is a complete solution for conducting automated load testing before , and after
application deployment.

LoadRuuner allows to

Scale the application to a predetermined capacity.

Identify the business processes or system components
having trouble.
Diagnose a problem to pinpoint the root cause.

26

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Performance Test - Automation Tools

27

HP- LoadRunner

IBM- Rational Performance Tester (RPT)

Compuware- QALoad

Borland SilkPerformer

Microsoft- VSTS, ACT( Application Centre Test)

RadView- WebLOAD ( Open Source)

Open Source Tools OpenSTA, Apache JMeter, Grinder

Worldwide Performance Testing Tool Market Share

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Borland
3%

Open Source
6%

Compuware 7%
Empirix 6%

IBM-Rational
11%
RadView 2%
Parasoft 3%

HP 62%

28

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Load Test Work Flow

29

Where Value and Innovation Co-exist

Thank You

30