Pepgo Testing - Performance Testing

What is Performance Testing?

Performance Testing is conducted to evaluate the compliance of a system or component with specified performance requirements, such as transaction response times for predefined numbers of concurrent users.

Performance Testing is usually performed on the protocol level.

Benefits of Performance Testing

Typically the benefits that are realized by performance testing are:

+	Removal of serious functional flaws related to data volume and synchronization issues not identified by Functional Testing
+	Using realistic data volumes and transaction rates enables identification of processing bottlenecks
+	Identification and removal of serious performance issues before deployment
+	Collection of performance metrics for the system under increasing load that enable system administrators to make and validate tuning decisions prior to deployment
+	Formal load tests provide a high level of confidence that the system is capable of supporting critical business transaction flows in normal operation before deployment
+	The test scripts and scenarios produced provide a re-usable test asset enabling rapid end-to-end execution of the critical business processes at minimal cost for regression test purposes.

The Solution

Pepgo Testing recommends Performance Testing with HP LoadRunner. HP LoadRunner is the industry leading performance testing tool and supports a wide variety of different protocols and performance monitors for analysis. HP LoadRunner can easily be integrated with HP's application monitoring solutions, such as HP Business Availability Center (BAC) and HP OpenView.

HP LoadRunner data sheet (606 KB)

While HP LoadRunner is in our opinion the best Performance Testing tool, it is also high priced. If Performance Testing is only done in a web environment, then some alternatives might be worth considering. The following tools are a starting point for general web testing, but there are also many open source Performance Testing tools that specialize in specific areas, such as Java or SOA (web services) testing.

1.	Neotys NeoLoad is in many ways similar to LoadRunner, but with less scripting capabilities. Neotys NeoLoad is commercial software.
2.	Quotium Test (QTest) is also a commercial tool. QTest is the successor of the QuotiumPro product, which was originally based on the open source OpenSTA code base.
3.	WebLOAD Open Source is a performance testing product based on WebLOAD, Radview's flagship product. Companies that require commercial support, additional productivity features and compatibility with third-party protocols have the option of purchasing WebLOAD Professional directly from RadView.