AppPerfect Load Tester 

Tutorial : Validation of a Load Test

This tutorial provides a brief introduction to the validation of a Load test 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. Change the default settings as shown in this dialog as Test Duration:1min, Run Type:Loop, LoopCount:2, Virtual Users:1.
  3. Go through the description given for Loop 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. Order an item by clicking on: Birds -> Amazon Parrot -> Adult Male Amazon Parrot -> Add to cart
  6. Check out by clicking on the Check Out link.
  7. At the 'Sign in' page, default values are already provided. Click on Submit.
  8. Sign out of PetStore by clicking on Sign-out at top right of screen.
  9. Close browser by clicking on File -> Close in the browser window.
  10. Click on the Stop button of "Record a test" dialog to stop the recording session.
  11. Click on Close button to close the 'Record a test' dialog.
  12. The URLs navigated will be displayed under ActionGroup1.
  13. Click through each Tasks to view its details on the panel on the right.

Exercise 3: Configuring Parameters in Test

Action:

  1. In the editor tree, select 'Parameters' to open the parameters settings table on the right hand side.
  2. Here, click on 'Add Parameter' button to add a parameter.
  3. In the 'Parameter Setting Dialog', enter 'userParam' as the parameter name.
  4. Select 'Fixed Values - Fetch value from list of fixed values provided' as Data Source.
  5. Choose 'Sequential' as parameter selection.
  6. Under Add Value, enter j2ee and click on the 'Add' button.
  7. Under Add Value, enter john and click on the 'Add' button.
  8. Click Ok.
  9. In the editor tree select the task which states something like 'Task20 [/petstore/checkhimout.do]'.
  10. Select 'Parameters' tab.
  11. Click on the parameter name 'userName1' in the parameters table.
  12. Click on the 'parameterize' button.
  13. In the parameterization settings dialog, select 'userName1' under the name column in the parameter settings table.
  14. On selection, in the value group, 'Constant' will be selected with the value j2ee in the text box.
  15. Select 'Parameter' and from the combo box, select userParam. This will use the values of userParam as username on each iteration.
  16. Click Ok.

Exercise 4: Configuring Text Validation

Action:

  1. In the editor tree select the task which states something like 'Task21 [/petstore/mainscreen.do]' after the task 'Task20 [/petstore/checkhimout.do]'.
  2. In the tree on the right hand side, right click and select 'Add Text Validation' in the pop-up menu.
  3. This will bring up the 'Text Validation Settings' dialog.
  4. Under description enter 'userNameText'.
  5. Under 'Check for', select 'Exact match' and enter j2ee.
  6. Click Ok. What this basically does is that when this page loads (on replaying), it will search the page for the text j2ee and if it is not found, the validation will fail. Since we have parameterized the username, on the 2nd iteration, the username passed will be john which does not exist. As a result of which, this page will not replayed as expected and the validation will fail.

Exercise 5: Configuring Element Attribute Validation

Action:

  1. In the editor tree select the task which states something like 'Task17 [/petstore/newLogin.jsp].
  2. Expand the right-hand side tree and select the element 'userName1' which will highlight the 'UserName' text box under 'Are you a returning customer - Yes'.
  3. Right-click on this element and select 'Add Validation'.
  4. This will bring up the 'Add Vaidation' dialog. Check 'Validate' for the row whose property name is 'value' and property value is 'j2ee'.
  5. Click Ok.
  6. Select the 'Validation' tab below. In the validation table, select the validation just added and click 'Parameterize..' button.
  7. This will bring up the 'Parameterization Settings Dialog'. Here change the constant value from j2ee to john.
  8. Click Ok.
  9. What this basically does is that when this page loads (on replaying), it will confirm the value in the text box with john. Since in both our iterations, the initial value (when the page loads) will be j2ee, the validation will fail in both iterations.

Exercise 6: 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 7: 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 we configured the validation to fail, the result of our test execution was "Failed". Additional details about failed hits can be found by clicking "View Failed Hits" button in task detail results view.