Neustar on ZeroSharp

Load Testing XAF: Part 5 - Analysis

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 07:37:00 +0100

This is the final post in a series about load testing XAF applications. Previously in the series:

In this part, we analyse the results of the load test we ran in Part 4.

Results

The results of the test we ran are here. The graphs are interactive and give quite interesting data about the load tests. Feel free to have a look and play around with the results.

Load Testing XAF: Part 4 - Launching the load test

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:19:00 +0100

This is another post in a series about load testing XAF applications. Previously in the series:

In this part, we will launch a 1 hour test with 25 virtual users using the NeuStar Web Performance Management module.

Schedule and launch a test

From the script validation screen, click on Schedule a load test with this script. The defaults are good, but you can specify in detail how to run your load test. For instance, you can coordinate multiple Selenium scripts to simulate different types of activity on your site.

Load Testing XAF: Part 3 - Uploading and Validating the Virtual User Script

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:39:00 +0100

This is another post in a series about load testing XAF applications. Previously in the series:

In this part, we will load test the application we set up in Part 1, using the Selenium load test we created in Part 2.

Neustar Web Performance Management

NeuStar (formerly BrowserMob) are a company specialised in web application performance monitoring. We are interested in their web performance module. It is free to create an account. To run a test with less than 25 virtual users costs only $0.15 per virtual user. Tests with more than 25 users (up to 5000) require an additional paid plan.

Load Testing XAF: Part 2 - Selenium

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:56:00 +0100

Writing a Selenium User Test against MainDemo

This is another post in a series about load testing XAF applications. Previously in the series:

Why not use DevExpress EasyTests?

The DevExpress recommended method of writing functional tests is to use the EasyTest functionality of the expressAppFramework. This has several advantages over other functional testing approaches.

It uses a domain specific language tailored for XAF making it easy to test views and actions
It makes it easy to interact with the DevExpress controls that are used within XAF
A single EasyTest can be run against both the ASP.NET and WinForms applications
EasyTests work against both the debug webserver and IIS

However, one feature which is not (yet) available is the ability to use EasyTests for load testing.

Load Testing XAF: Part 1 - Deploying

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:21:00 +0100

This is the first part of a tutorial about load testing XAF applications. See the overview for a bit of background. In this post we set up the target webserver.

You can target any machine which has a publicly available web address, but for this tutorial, I’m’ deploying the MainDemo to the Amazon cloud, by following the instructions in Part 1 and Part 2 of my previous series about Amazon Web Services.

I am using version 12.2.7 of the DevExpress XAF MainDemo. There are a couple of extra changes to make to the web.config.

Load Testing XAF: Overview

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:20:00 +0100

Over the next few posts, I will demonstrate how to load test XAF web applications.

History

Performance testing has traditionally been difficult and expensive. A few years ago, to do it well required a powerful piece of dedicated load testing software such as HP LoadRunner (typical cost back in 2007: USD 50,000-100,000 or more per year!). This software was capable of simulating multiple virtual users via the use of recorded scripts and providing detailed performance statistics. Usually the cost was increased further increased by the need for powerful hardware to be able to run the application.