5 Simple Strategies for More Realistic Load Tests

Ramping Up Virtual Users

When running performance tests, it’s not desirable to start all virtual users at the same time. Starting all virtual users at the same time can create artificial bottlenecks in certain parts of the application – such as the login process. In LoadNinja, you can elect to set a load profile whereby you start with a small number of virtual users, and increase that number over time. Plus our VU Debugger and VU Inspector allow you to see results and debug in real time. For example: you start with a single virtual user and add one virtual user every two seconds until you reach a certain number of simultaneous users, and then hold that number for the duration of the test.

Setting Load Duration

In order for you to run a test with large numbers of virtual users, you will need to set duration for your test. By setting duration, each virtual user will execute its scenario and when it reaches the end it will start over – thereby maintaining the level of load. For example, if your scenario takes two minutes to be executed, but you run a test for 10 minutes, the scenario might be executed five times by each virtual user.

Parameterizing Tests

While recording a scenario, you may need to specify some parameters that will be used for further test runs. For example, you can enter some search terms, user names and so on in the application’s fields. However, it is not a good practice to play back a test with the same recorded data for each user as it does not simulate the real-life conditions. To solve the problem, parameterize your load test using special variables. A variable can store desired data and your requests can use this data during test runs.

Skip Emulating Browser Speed and Bandwidth - Test in Real Browsers

Real users visit a website using different browsers, the bandwidth of user’s Internet connections can vary significantly, and they spend different amounts of time on each page. You can run load tests in real browsers to gauge your application performance using LoadNinja. This means you can leverage virtual users in real browsers to understand how your application performs on various devices. You can also specify think time for each tested page (we call this think time, as it simulates the time period when a user is viewing the page and thinking). You can easily randomize the think time for simulated scenarios to better emulate real user activity to better simulate actual users in your performance tests.

Simulating Concurrent Requests

To download a Web page, modern Web browsers send requests to the server using several simultaneous connections. These parallel requests download images, scripts, CSS files and other resources located on the page. Unlike many other load testing tools, LoadNinja does not need to simulate concurrent requests, as it is running in a real browser. LoadNinja automatically detects and runs parallel requests.

Related Topics

Close

Start Your 14 Day Free Trial

By submitting this form, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Ensure your web applications reliably perform under any condition

  • Record and playback test scripts in minutes with no dynamic correlation or coding
  • Generate accurate load with real browsers at scale for realistic performance data
  • Analyze browser-based performance data that developers and testers can understand out of the box
  • Visualize, isolate and debug any performance issue Virtual Users encounter