AppPerfect Load Tester 

Tutorial : Load Testing a Web Application / Server

This tutorial provides a brief introduction to the Load Tester product of the AppPerfect Test Studio using a set of hands-on practice exercises. This tutorial assumes you have successfully downloaded and installed AppPerfect Test Studio on your machine with the default options. Apart from this pre-requisite, this tutorial is self contained. Instructions given below are Windows-specific; if you are using a non-Windows machine, please use equivalent commands/instructions.

This document is divided into following sections

  1. Creating Common Project
  2. AppPerfect Load Tester

Within each section, multiple exercises are listed. Each exercise forms a logical unit which is expected to take no more than a few minutes to perform. All exercises use the PetStore demo application running inside Apache Tomcat. The modified PetStore application and Tomcat are both bundled with this product.

All exercises assume you have installed the product in C:\AppPerfect\TestStudio folder and will be referred as TESTSTUDIO_HOME henceforth in tutorial. If you have installed the product in some other folder, modify the instructions below appropriately.

This tutorial is not intended as a comprehensive training guide. Please refer to the product documentation for detailed information. However, this tutorial will give you a very good overview of the products and substantially improve your productivity with the product.

Creating Common Project

In AppPerfect Test Studio, you can create a common project and use the same project to perform tests in all the bundled products.

Exercise 1: Launch AppPerfect Test Studio

Action:

  1. Click on Start -> Programs ->AppPerfect Test Studio x.x.x -> AppPerfect Test Studio
  2. On launching AppPerfect Test Studio a Welcome page will be displayed. Go through the brief description given for each product and click on the product icon to view its perspective.
    NB: Welcome page is displayed only when Test Studio x.x.x is launched and last time no project was opened.
  3. To switch between different product perspectives click on corresponding project button in toolsbar.

Exercise 2: Creating a Common Project

Action:

  1. Launch the Common Project Wizard by clicking File ->New... menu option. The New Project wizard will be launched.
  2. Keep the default project name and location for the purpose of this exercise. We don't have to provide "Notification" settings. Click on the OK button.
  3. A confirmation message saying that the project is saved will be displayed. Click on the OK button.

Now using this common project we will create tests to demonstrate the functionalities of AppPerfect Load Tester product.

AppPerfect Load Tester

NB:Please follow the steps provided in the "Creating Common Project" section to first create a common project, then proceed further.

Exercise 1: Define a Load Tester project

Action:

  1. Once the common project is successfully created another dialog - Define Project Properties dialog - will be displayed.
  2. Keep the default settings as shown in this dialog i.e., Test Duration:1min, Run Type:Burst, Virtual Users:10.
  3. Go through the description given for Burst run type at the bottom.
  4. Review other settings in the Panel and click on the OK button to close this dialog.
  5. Click through all the menu items to familiarize yourself with the available features and how to access them. Viewing through all menu items will give a reasonable overview of the application.
  6. Click Help -> Table of Contents menu item to see AppPerfect Test Studio product documentation
  7. Open the Preferences dialog by selecting the menu option Tools -> Options...
  8. Review the default settings for Load Tester and click the OK button to close the dialog.

Exercise 2: Recording a Test

Action:

  1. Start tomcat server by selecting Start->Programs->AppPerfect Test Studio x.x.x->Documentation and Examples->Examples->Tomcat running Petstore->Start Server.
  2. To start recording, click on Project -> Record test... in the menu bar.'
  3. 'Record a test' dialog will be displayed. Select ActionGroup1 from the Group combo. Provide starting URL as "http://localhost:8081/petstore". In the authentication select "No Authentication". Click on 'Start recording' button to start recording test.
  4. An instance of Microsoft Internet Explorer will be launched with the PetStore home page loaded. Click on enter the store link. This will populate the database and display the PetStore main page. Note that populating the database might take some time.
  5. Click on each link on the left: Birds, Reptiles, Dogs, Cats, Fish
  6. Order an item by clicking on: Birds -> Amazon Parrot -> Adult Male Amazon Parrot -> Add to cart
  7. Modify the quantity and click on Update Cart button.
  8. Check out by clicking on the Check Out link.
  9. At the 'Sign in' page, default values are already provided. Click on Submit.
  10. Sign out of PetStore by clicking on Sign-out at top right of screen.
  11. Close browser by clicking on File -> Close in the browser window.
  12. Click on the Stop button of "Record a test" dialog to stop the recording session.
  13. Click on Close button to close the 'Record a test' dialog.
  14. The URLs navigated will be displayed under ActionGroup1.
  15. Click through each Tasks to view its details on the panel on the right.

Exercise 3: Executing a test

Action:

  1. To execute the test, click on Project -> Run from the menubar.
  2. The focus will be shifted to Status tab. Here the current status of the test execution will be displayed. Various test metrics such as response time, virtual user count, etc. are continuously refreshed in the charts.
  3. The test will run for 1 minute as specified when project was created.
  4. Stop running tomcat server by selecting Start->Programs->AppPerfect Test Studiox.x.x->Documentation and Examples->Examples->Tomcat running Petstore->Stop Server.

Exercise 4: View and analyze result

Action:

  1. Once the test is completed, the test results will be displayed in the "Results" tab and result summary data is displayed in the main window on the right.
  2. Since no error was detected during our test execution, the result of our test execution was "Successful". Additional details about hit count, etc. is also displayed.
  3. View various result summaries by clicking on the items in the tree on the left in the Results tab