PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING USING MICRO FOCUS LOADRUNNER

by Metsi | February 03, 2021

February 03, 2021

LoadRunner is a software testing tool from Micro Focus. It is used to test application performance by measuring system behavior and performance under load. LoadRunner can simulate thousands of users concurrently using application software, recording and later analyzing the performance of key components of the application. LoadRunner simulates user activity by generating messages between application components or by simulating interactions with the user interface such as keypresses or mouse movements. The messages and interactions to be generated are stored in scripts. LoadRunner can generate the scripts by recording them, such as logging HTTP requests between a client web browser and an application's web server.

Challenge

Our customer needed, at a minimum, to confirm that upgrading to a new release of their inventory management software would not cause performance issues. Their hope was for us to demonstrate that the new version of inventory management software improved performance for the end user experience. The application was only available on the customer’s internal network which meant for remote work our consultant needed to perform scripting and testing through a WebEx meeting until security could approve a login for remotely connecting to the server where the LoadRunner controller was installed.

Solution

Metsi proposed that load generators be setup across several of the customer’s locations and ran 10 different scripts weighted proportionate to how common the actions were in those scripts. This allowed the load tests to simulate typical traffic based on realistic network conditions. Metsi ran a series of tests and ramped up to larger volumes of load to see how the application performed. From these test results Metsi identified a memory leak, recommended remediation, and verified that the new inventory management software release would perform as good if not better in some cases.

Summary

Metsi offers application load testing remote or on-site using either SaaS or on- premise load generators. Our team can perform tests in LoadRunner, NeoLoad, or LoadStorm. With Metsi’s performance engineering expertise, you can load test your applications to provide meaningful insight into their performance and scalability to ensure an optimal end user experience.