What's New in StressTester™ 7?

The new online StressTester™ Learning Center will guide experienced and novice performance testers through the process of understanding how to use StressTester™ to configure realistic performance tests without the need to write a single line of test script code.

The Center is designed to be accessed from your desk, you can work at the speed you wish, and pause and come back to where you previously left off as often as you like.

It is estimated that in just two hours you will have installed StressTester™, configured your first performance test against your application, parameterized requests, validated application responses, and analyzed the results of the test.

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As you move around the StressTester™ GUI, you will be offered lists of suggested video tutorials that will show you how to perform common tasks within StressTester™.

Of course, as you become more experienced with the tool, you can switch off these prompts.

At any point when the 'Show Me' button is available in the GUI toolbar, simply click it to see a list of tutorials appropriate to where you are within StressTester™.

So, no more hours of reading manuals – easy to understand videos are available whenever you need to see how to use a feature within StressTester™.

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Whether you are recording a new application usage (User Journey in StressTester™ terminology), adding parameters to application requests, configuring performance tests, creating your own graphs or any other seemingly complex function, a wizard is available to guide you through the process quickly and easily.

There's even a wizard for extracting values from application responses to use in subsequent requests – something that can be very complex when writing test scripts. This wizard includes a test facility meaning you never need to save, execute and then investigate any errors – every configuration will be correct first time!

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During a performance test, or at any point afterwards, you can see the web page (or single application response) that the user would have seen. In fact, you can see both its view representation and, where appropriate, the response's source (e.g. the HTML code for a web page).

You always have access to the application responses from the time you recorded the business transaction – allowing easy comparison with the latest test and identification of values to use as validation criteria during a performance test.

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As applications get more and more complex, the request parameters increase and the overall physical length of the request gets longer and longer.

In StressTester™ 7, request parameters – both those that form part of the URL and those that are part of the POST data – are separated into an easy to read table within the request properties screen; allowing you to simply identify and parameterize the parts of the request you need to.

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StressTester™ allows very complex test run configurations to be created easily using the Test Run Configuration wizard.

Test run configurations can specify that load is injected from more than one location, that different business transactions are simulated at different locations, and that the load ramp profiles are different for different transactions and / or locations.

The wizard therefore allows you to configure StressTester™ to place your application under the exact load that will be experienced in the real world, testing all network locations and determining if certain transactions perform unacceptably at certain locations.

As part of a test run configuration, you can view graphs that represent how load will be applied and increased for the business transactions and the injection locations; allowing you easily to check that your test run configuration is correct.

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StressTester™ 7 contains more chart types, giving you even more flexibility in representing the results of performance tests in the format you want.

We believe the most useful addition is true histogram support; see the following sections for examples of where a histogram probably provides the best representation of information.

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To add more than one set of results onto a graph so that they can be compared, you simply right-click on the graph and choose “Add/Remove Runs”. Then select the runs whose results you would like to compare and they are automatically drawn onto the graph.

This can be configured during a performance test; allowing the results of the current test to be compared to a previous set of results in real-time as the current test executes.

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To compare different locations, it's the same process as for comparing two sets of results but this time you choose “Add/Remove Injectors” (an Injector is synonymous with a location in StressTester™).

Again, this can be performed during a performance test so you can compare different location performance in real-time.

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You now have full control over how your Analyze Results workspace is configured, the graphs and data tables that are shown, the order they are shown and much more.

This means that during and after performance tests, you can quickly gain the information (not to be confused with ‘data') you require, in the format you want.

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StressTester™ 7 allows you to quickly (using a wizard of course) add a new graph to your analysis workspace. Choose the chart type you want, what data you want to be displayed, and much more by following the wizard screens.

The new graph is immediately available to you and can be applied to past or present (real-time) results.

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