AgileLoad; An Enterprise Class Load, Stress and Performance Testing Tool [Review]

Performance engineering has experienced phenomenal changes in the last decade with the advent of advanced technologies, renewed processes and a serious focus of businesses on cost, time and reliability of their web applications. If you have been reading 'Software Testing Tricks' regularly, then you might be already aware that I've been doing lot of experiments and reviewing various enterprise-class load testing tools recently. As part of this ongoing exploration recently I came across AgileLoad, a Windows tool for performance testing of web applications designed for use in internal networks or on the ‘Cloud’. The cloud load generation support provided by the tool help generation of the load from distributed locations to simulate near real scenarios.

47% of your customers expect your web page to load within 2 seconds. 40% of your visitors (out of whom many could be your potential buyers/customers) will leave your site if the page loads longer than 3 seconds. And this 1 second delay will cost you an approximate loss of 7% revenue from your site. Every web application that is designed for the load of users, need to be optimized for that load and hence the need for an Enterprise-class load, stress and performance testing tool becomes even more important than ever.

How Good is AgileLoad?

AgileLoad features advanced functions like automatic modeling, real time data correlation, anomaly diagnostic and recommendations, automatic reporting tailored for stakeholders for a fast resolution of performance bottlenecks. And it doesn't matter how complex is your web server deployment as AgileLoad supports all of the following configurations:

- On-premise
- On-premise with load injectors on the cloud
- On the cloud (pre-configured machine on Amazon Ec2)

AgileLoad Modules

AgileLoad is made of 3 modules:

1) Script Editor : Create test scenarios and script

- Capture test scenarios by browsing through the application.

- Automatic parameterization of common parameters (session ID, view state etc…)
- User can teach the tool how to manage custom dynamic fields by creating models : data parameterization done once and reused any time, which ease the tool use and speed up scenario creation
- Validation and debugging
- 4 records mode: integrated in IE, Proxy, Tunnel HTTP, Tunnel TCP.
- Technologies supported:

a) Web apps: J2EE, .Net, PHP, AJAX, AMF (flex), GWT, Silverlight, Applets, WPF, SharePoint Apps, Oracle Apps, SAP Net Weaver
b) Web services: SOAP, JSON, XML, REST

c) Protocols: HTTP/HTTPS, TCP, WAP, POP3, SMTP
d) Browsers: IE, FireFox, NetScape, Chrome and Safari

2) Test Center : Manage test setup and execution

- Setup of distributed load injectors, workload and SLA. IPSpoofing
- Setup of monitoring collectors: Apache,  IIS, Windows, Unix, Linux, SQLServer, Mysql, PostegreSQL, DB2, Informix, Sybase, Oracle, Sharepoint, JBoss, Weblogic, Websphere, OracleAS, Tomcat, VMWare ESX , Microsoft Hyper-V, SNMP

- Real time monitoring during test : drag and drop metrics and statistics to see what is going on

- Generate test reports using a specific template

- Generate anomalies report list (according to SLA and pre-defined anomalies profiles) with fix recommendations

3) Report Designer : Custom reporting template

- Drag and drop metrics to create specific graph and tables
- Create different reporting template (presentation/content) tailored by stakeholders

- Need windows Word to work

AgileLoad; Unique Features

Features that makes this tool unique and different from other similar tools are:

- The Starter Kit, makes quick ramp-up on usage of the tool super easy.
- Automatic Modeling makes life easier for the load tester by reducing scripting time for subsequent test cases against the same app.
- End to End diagnostic features of the tool not only monitors the front-end but also the back-end of the web apps and thus helps detecting the exact reason for performance degradation.
- Anomaly detection and suggestion features help the tester to quickly identify and resolve the performance bottlenecks.
- Configurable Reports add visibility into your tests and hence is a very useful feature.

Pricing

The Free version of AgileLoad provides support for free scripting and 10VU supported testing, for both on Premise and On Cloud variants. Using the free version of the tool, you can design, setup and execute load tests with 10 concurrent users for 15 minutes – for unlimited test (no trial period).

For large test, a license based on a number of concurrent users and a time frame can be bought directly online and the cost for a 50 virtual user license (21 collectors) including full technologies support and monitoring starts at $72 per day. Additional pricing is available on their website.

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About Debasis Pradhan

Debasis has over a decade worth of exclusive experience in the field of Software Quality Assurance, Software Development and Testing. He writes here to share some of his interesting experiences with fellow testers.