posted 11-23-2001 07:23 PM         

Being new to this kind of testing and QA in general i would like to get to know all about this subject. Reading through this forum i see all kinds of nice little, very expensive tools that present nice graphics etcetera. But before trying to confince my technology challenged bosses that we might need such an expensive tool i need to understand the underlying philosophy and theory behind load and performance testing or technical testing in general. Can anybody point me to resources where i can find such information, or books i should be reading first? I also would like to know if there are any tools already available in my computer as it were to be used freely but im not aware of.

Many thanks,

Jurrien

posted 11-23-2001 09:10 PM         

read a book Capacity Planning by Almieda
It is wholesome and you will get complete knowledge of performance stuff.

I have list of sites on performance testing. Send me an email, will be able to give you

govind/Pune/India
govind_b_kul@hotmail.com

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posted 11-26-2001 05:10 AM         

There are indeed a couple of 'free' tools which you can just download and use out of the box e.g:

Microsofts WAST (Web Application Stress Tool) http://webtool.rte.microsoft.com/

OpenSTA http://www.opensta.org/

However, note that these are Web Only tools so if you are devloping in a a different environment then you will have to look further afield. Post here describing your environment should you require any suggestions on suitable tools.

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Hope this helps.

posted 11-26-2001 05:25 AM           

quote:

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Originally posted by Quasar:
But before trying to confince my technology challenged bosses that we might need such an expensive tool i need to understand the underlying philosophy and theory behind load and performance testing or technical testing in general.

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Kudos to you for taking an intelligent and informed leap into the world of performance simulation! It is rare to find someone like this in my opinion.

Keep in mind that, in general, a performance test is a relative measure of the stability and scalability of a given system under expected user/visitor conditions prior to deployment. It tends to be broken up into transaction testing, load testing, volume testing, and stress testing. A superset of performance testing/simulation is capacity planning, which is more of a proactive approach to the overall performance concept.

In general, the philosophy I tend to adhere to behind this is that of queuing networks. I have a few papers that I have written on this that I would be happy to share with you if that would help. Just let me know.

Also, what I consider some excellent sources of information:

Capacity Planning for Web Services: Metrics, Models, and Methods by Daniel Menasce and Virgilio Almeida

This one is an update to their previous book: Capacity Planning for Web Services: Metrics, Models, and Methods.

Another good one from the same authors is: Scaling for E-Business: Technologies, Models, Performance, and Capacity Planning.

posted 12-12-2001 04:23 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by Quasar:
Dear reader,

Being new to this kind of testing and QA in general i would like to get to know all about this subject. Reading through this forum i see all kinds of nice little, very expensive tools that present nice graphics etcetera. But before trying to confince my technology challenged bosses that we might need such an expensive tool i need to understand the underlying philosophy and theory behind load and performance testing or technical testing in general. Can anybody point me to resources where i can find such information, or books i should be reading first? I also would like to know if there are any tools already available in my computer as it were to be used freely but im not aware of.

Many thanks,

Jurrien

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Jurrien,
Chapter 4 of the book "Quality Web Systems" provides pragmatic information on performance and load testing.
HTH,
Elfriede

posted 12-14-2001 08:17 AM         

'automated web testing toolkit'
by diane stottlemyer
published by wiley

and

'testing applications on the web'
by hung q nguyen
published by wiley

posted 12-18-2001 11:27 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by jwortham:
I run several QA teams for my company and now I've been charged with training a team in our India office to do performance testing. Any help, guidance and/or online reference materials would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
-J

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Hi, i think i can help you with this issue but i cant give you more details in this forum, you can send me your e-mail to: tzvika66@hotmail.com
and we can discuss about load tests and athoer issues

posted 01-09-2002 10:49 AM         

will you add me to the distribution list of the performance test sites you have?

mptraylor@ups.com