Load Testing RIA using WebLOAD. Amir Shoval, VP Product Management

Load Testing RIA using WebLOAD

Amir Shoval, VP Product Management [email protected]

Agenda

• Introduction to performance testing

• Introduction to WebLOAD

• Load testing Rich Internet Applications

Software Performance

•

The speed

at which software functions

(sub-second response time versus three-(sub-second

response time)

•

How often software is available

(99% uptime

versus scheduled weekly downtime)

•

How these two factors change as usage

levels

increase (from dozens of current users to

thousands)

Software performance matters to the business

•

Software performance is a limiting factor of

business performance

–

A financial services company

can’t provide

a

life insurance quote to a customer

any faster

than its quote engine can compute the

appropriate rate

–

An automotive supplier

can’t start

building

parts if the software that delivers orders from

its OEM customers has been taken down by

unanticipated usage levels

–

A retailer

can’t process

orders

any faster

than

it can process credit card validations

Performance Testing

• Performance testing (performance verification) ensures that software performance meets the business needs.

• Most relevant for multi-user systems (such as web applications), focusing on testing the system’s back-end servers.

• Using tools to automate the testing process to verify the system’s speed, availability and tolerance for load.

• These tools enable simulating multiple users accessing the program's services concurrently and measure

their responsiveness.

• Often used synonymously with Load Testing.

Approached for load testing web applications

• Virtual Client Model

– Simulate real-user scenarios

– The application is statefull

– Verify the system is fast

enough in terms of response times and user experience

• Transaction Per Second (TPS) Model

– The system exposes a set of

services and/or needs to perform a set of transactions

– Services/transactions are stateless

– Can be consumed by several client applications

– Verify the services’ availability under load and their tolerance to increased levels of load

Challenges in load testing web applications

• Modern web applications are becoming more challenging to test – Web 2.0 • Rich Internet Applications (RIA) • AJAX • Push / streaming • Mashups – SOA • Web Services

– Desktop-deployed web applications (e.g. Adobe AIR)

• Testing method should match the service’s usage

– Remote procedure call (RPC, remoting)

– Messaging

– Representational State Transfer (REST)

How Does WebLOAD Work?

• WebLOAD tests Web applications by generating Virtual Clients that simulate real-world traffic.

• Virtual Clients emulate the actions of human users by performing typical actions (user transactions) on your Web application.

• By increasing the number of Virtual Clients, you increase the load on the system.

• The behavior of the Virtual Clients is defined by JavaScript-based scripts called Agendas.

• During load execution WebLOAD captures, measures, validates and analyzes the user transactions, for both content and time.

WebLOAD Architecture

Load Generator(s)

System Under Test Authoring

Environment

Execution Environment

Test Script Virtual Clients Performance Data Statistics and Performance Data WebLOAD Console WebLOAD IDE Analysis & Reporting WebLOAD Analytics Load Session Results WebLOAD Highlights ƒ Distributed architecture

ƒ Protocol level testing

ƒ Web standard JavaScript

ƒ Object oriented scripting

ƒ Server-side monitoring via

Test-script authoring

• Integrated environment for script creation and debugging

• Proxy-based recorder

– Record extended HTTP traffic on protocol level (AJAX, WebServices, binary data).

– Records both HTTP & HTTPS, with built-in automatic recording settings for IE 7.0 and Firefox 2.0.

• JavaScript test scripts

– Visual and manual editing

– HTML & XML DOM Access

– Step-by-step debugger with log, watch and variable views

• COM & JAVA Integration and Extendibility

– Integrate your existing component or extend the WebLOAD capabilities

Load session definition

• Define load session attributes

– Duration, Maximal load (up to

thousands of Virtual Clients per Load Machine)

– Complex scheduling models

– Multiple user-scenarios

– Load machines

– Server-side statistics to collect

– Content validation

• Goal-oriented definition

– Define performance goals according to SLA / requirements

– Increase load until defined goals are met

Load session execution

• On-line and real-time

monitoring of the load session

• Display collected statistics in both charts and tables

– Create charts to display any combination of measurement

• Increase/decrease the number of virtual clients

• Pause/stop the session at any time

• Error messages displayed in the Log view

Analysis & Reporting

• Current version –

WebLOAD Reporter

– Predefined reports

– Custom reports

– Publish to standard formats

List of Canned, Regression and Custom Reports

Session

Performance vs. Load Size Report

Measurements Description

• Next version –

WebLOAD Analytics

— More predefined reports

— Analyze using filters and parameters

— New stats: TPS, percentiles

— Regression reports

About RadView

• Pioneer of web apps testing

• Investment of 250 man years in development of web testing tools

• 1600 customers worldwide

• Founder - Ilan Kinreich, (co - founder of Mercury

Interactive)

• NASDAQ: IPO in 2000, raised $40M

Load testing Rich Internet Applications (RIA)

What is RIA?

Asynchronous JavaScript And XML - AJAX

• One of the key technologies behind Web 2.0

• Web development technique for creating interactive

web applications

• AJAX techniques

– DOM accessed by a client-side scripting language

– XMLHttpRequest object used to exchange data asynchronously with the web server.

– XML, plain text, JSON, preformatted HTML – as data types passed between the client and the server.

• AJAX is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies

AJAX Sample

© Yahoo! (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/datatable/)

var myDataTable = new YAHOO.widget.DataTable("xml", myColumnSet, myDat aSource,{initialRequest:"query=pizza&zip=94089&results=10"});

var myDataTable = new YAHOO.widget.DataTable("xml", myColumnSet, myDat aSource,{initialRequest:"query=pizza&zip=94089&results=10"});

…

<Title>Pizza Depot</Title>

<Address>919 E Duane Ave</Address> <City>Sunnyvale</City> <State>CA</State> <Phone>(408) 245-7760</Phone> <Rating> <AverageRating>3.5</AverageRating> … … <Title>Pizza Depot</Title>

<Address>919 E Duane Ave</Address> <City>Sunnyvale</City> <State>CA</State> <Phone>(408) 245-7760</Phone> <Rating> <AverageRating>3.5</AverageRating> …

Load Testing Tool – Implementation Options

• Technology

– Protocol (“network”) level record and replay

– Based on “sniffer like” proxy recording

• Main PROs:

√ Clear separation between server side and client side √ Not affected by application

level changes and GUI

• Main CONs:

8 Client side operation 8 Binary payload

• Technology

– Protocol (“network”) level record and replay

– Based on “sniffer like” proxy recording

• Main PROs:

√ Clear separation between server side and client side

√ Not affected by application level changes and GUI

• Main CONs:

8 Client side operation 8 Binary payload

• Technology

– Events and API record and replay

– Based on “events hooks” for recording and emulation for playback

• Main PROs:

√ GUI and client side testing

• Main CONs:

8 Application dependent 8 Cross-browser

incompatibility 8 Less scalabale

8 Handle operations which are not “client side triggered”

• Technology

– Events and API record and replay

– Based on “events hooks” for recording and emulation for playback

• Main PROs:

√ GUI and client side testing

• Main CONs:

8 Application dependent 8 Cross-browser

incompatibility

8 Less scalabale

8 Handle operations which are

RIA as Synchronous/Asynchronous Ajax

application

•

Load testing on the

protocol level provides

built-in support for

RIA-Ajax testing.

•

WebLOAD does not differ

between standard HTTP methods and XMLHTTP requests.

Adobe Flex

What is Adobe Flex ?

• Adobe’s solution for RIA.

• Adobe Flex is a development environment that enables developers to build applications that are rich in terms of how data flows between tiers.

• AMF (Action Message Format)

• Transport Channel

– AMF Channel / Secure AMF Channel

– HTTP Channel (AMFX) / Secure HTTP Channel

– Streaming AMF Channel

– RTMP Channel

Adobe Flex

• Flash Remoting MX Gateway

• LiveCycle Data Services enhances the client-side Flex framework by providing

high-performance connectivity with existing server-side data and business logic.

• LiveCycle Data Services integrates with existing common

middleware

• Types of services provided in LiveCycle Data Services

– RPC

– Publish/Subscribe messaging

WebLOAD Adobe Flex Add-on

9 Supports Flex 2 and up; Adobe AIRSupports Flex 2 and up; Adobe AIR

9

9 Record AMF 0/3 protocol over HTTP/HTTPSRecord AMF 0/3 protocol over HTTP/HTTPS

9

9 Debug and parameterize the agendaDebug and parameterize the agenda

9

9 Verify the responseVerify the response

9

9 Monitor Flex statisticsMonitor Flex statistics

9

Recording a Flex application

Playing the Agenda

Collecting Adobe LCDS server-side statistics

Call to Action

•

Download WebLOAD evaluation version

www.radview.com

•

Provide us feedback