When Written: Nov 2006
Once you have built and tested your web application, the next question you should ask yourself is ‘what is the performance under stress of this application’ this question should be asked before asking ‘who do I invoice?’ There are several tools out there to help several of which I have written about in the past.
A new one that I came across is Neotys (http://www.neotys.com) Whilst their web site says that it’s for testing web applications, the truth is that it can be used for testing conventional web sites as well. There is a free trial download on their site but this is limited to the number of users it can simulate. Once downloaded and installed you create a new project and then from within the application you browse your web site as if you are a user.
NeoLoad web site stress testing and reporting tool is one of the best
After this you can then set the ‘user’s’ bandwidth as well as how the number of users grows over time. When the test has finished running a very comprehensive set of reports is produced which should enable you to find any possible bottle necks in your web site. Without such tools you are only guessing at the performance of your web site and with the complexity of web applications it becomes even more important to check if there are any performance issues arising from your code.
The ease of use and the drill down flexibility of the reports makes this one of the best I’ve seen although at 11,000 euro to test up to 1,000 users it is could represent a major expense.
Article by: Mark Newton
Published in: Mark Newton