AgileLoad; An Enterprise Class Load, Stress and Performance Testing Tool [Review]

Performance engineering has experienced phenomenal changes in the last decade with the advent of advanced technologies, renewed processes and a serious focus of businesses on cost, time and reliability of their web applications. If you have been reading 'Software Testing Tricks' regularly, then you might be already aware that I've been doing lot of experiments and reviewing various enterprise-class load testing tools recently. As part of this ongoing exploration recently I came across AgileLoad, a Windows tool for performance testing of web applications designed for use in internal networks or on the ‘Cloud’. The cloud load generation support provided by the tool help generation of the load from distributed locations to simulate near real scenarios.

47% of your customers expect your web page to load within 2 seconds. 40% of your visitors (out of whom many could be your potential buyers/customers) will leave your site if the page loads longer than 3 seconds. And this 1 second delay will cost you an approximate loss of 7% revenue from your site. Every web application that is designed for the load of users, need to be optimized for that load and hence the need for an Enterprise-class load, stress and performance testing tool becomes even more important than ever.

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Tags: AgileLoad, Automation Tools, Load Testing, Load Testing Tools, Performance Testing, Performance Testing Tools, Quality, Review, Software Testing, Stress Testing, Stress Testing Tools, Testing Tools

Win a FREE Copy of "Software Testing Career Package" eBook

Earlier this year, when my friend Vijay Shinde from softwaretestinghelp.com contacted me to be the co-author and editor of his long-planned Book with software testing tips and tricks, it was a pleasant surprise. Vijay is a passionate tester himself and there were many occasions in the past where we had sought each others opinions, helped and shared ideas on software testing. So when I was approached with the honor to co-author this book and let my words find their way into this long-awaited testing help guide, I couldn't say no.

Why 'Software Testing Career Package eBook'?

I'm really glad to let my readers know that the eBook, 'Software Testing Career Package - A Software Tester's Journey from Getting a Job to Becoming a Test Leader' has been announced now and now up for the grab. This book has tried to answer over 300 different frequently asked software testing questions. The comprehensive chapters in the book take you through the details of getting a job in software testing field, getting started in software testing, and advancing in your career to become a software testing expert.

It doesn't matter if you’re a fresh graduate and looking for a software testing job or if you just got a software testing/QA job and wondering how you can get started. Even if you are an experienced tester this book explains useful tips to take your testing career to next level. The six comprehensive chapters of this book tries to answer all your questions relating to testing and software quality.

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Tags: How To, Quality, Review, Software Testing, Testing eBook, Testing Stories, Testing Tools

Interviewing a Testing Expert - Elisabeth Hendrickson [Part-1]

I know, it has been a really long time since I published any of my testing interviews with a software testing expert from around the globe. So here I'm again; and this time I'll be interviewing Elisabeth Hendrickson from Test Obsessed. [Feel free to visit her blog to know more about what she has been doing and about all the interesting testing stuffs she has been carrying out of late; of course  after you've finished reading this interview here first :)]

For those who haven't known her, she is one of those rare breeds of experienced testers who have been in the software development for past 3 decades. She has held positions as a tester, developer, manager, and quality engineering director in a variety of companies ranging from small start-ups to multi-national enterprises and today I'll be interviewing her here on Software Testing Tricks.

Since this interview grew bit lengthier, for the sake of easy readability I have decided to present it in 2 parts. So, here is what Elisabeth has to say:

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Tags: Interview Questions, Interviewing a Testing Expert, Quality, Software Testing, Testing Stories

Top 5 Lame Excuses for Not Having Enough Testers/Testing

It’s amazing how many product teams never give enough importance to testing (and testers). And the excuses you hear are even more astonishing; albeit funny. With all the free and open source testing tools, services, sites, blogs and books available, one can no longer have any more excuses not to perform software testing on their product before they release it. It might come as a surprise to some, but in most cases many developers do not get the opportunity to work with a truly competent tester and hence they don't know what that is like. Ignoring the importance of testing and testers in a team is such a hideous false economy that it is hard to believe so many organizations and people still believe in it and hence have to resort to these stupid excuses for not having enough testing/testers.

I realize that it may be hard to rank these (dumb) reasons that people like to use for not doing enough testers (and hiring enough testers) but here are the top 5 stupid reasons people don't hire testers. Read on...

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Tags: Critical Thinking, Paradox, Quality, Software Testing, TDD, Testing Stories, Thinking Tester, Top 10

WAPT; A Load Testing Tool That Delivers! [Review]

In my constant search for new and interesting testing tools I recently came across WAPT, which claims to be one of the best load, stress and performance testing tool for websites and web-based applications, and unlike most other similar vendors WAPT surprisingly delivers its promise in most areas. One thing that I really like about using WAPT is its unmatched simplicity. Unlike many other widely used load and stress testing tools that you might have already used, WAPT uses a fully customizable set of virtual users to simulate a real-life load. And to make things even more interesting, with WAPT, your test scenarios can be detailed up to unique parameters for each individual user. 

What makes WAPT a Good Tool for Any Web Application Load, Stress, Performance Tester?

WAPT is designed to generate maximum possible load on your web site that you are testing. While most other similar tools also offer this ability, what makes WAPT impressive is its ability to use a number of techniques to make this load as similar as possible to the activity of real users browsing the web site in real life. This unique approach ensures that if your tests are passed, you can safely assume that the web site under test will show similar performance characteristics in real-time usage.

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Tags: Automation Tools, Load Testing, Load Testing Tools, Performance Testing, Performance Testing Tools, Quality, Review, Software Testing, Stress Testing, Stress Testing Tools, Testing Tools