posted 10-28-2002 09:39 AM         

I need to conduct a load testing campaign for a relatively small app that has just been adapted to client/server architecture.

The client is written in VB and the server part actually is an Access DB which serves plain text excerpts to display on screen as well as logs in the user's input.

I've heard of various products like Loadrunner but I must admit I really don't have a clue where to start and what kind of info to produce that would reflect the soft reaction to stress and not the calculation capability of the hardware.

Thanks for your precious advice.

posted 10-28-2002 10:57 AM         

1) Performance Testing methodology/approach - check out http://www.perftestplus.com - the stuff there does have a web application and Rational tools slant to it, but the concepts are universal.

2) Load Generation/Testing Tools. If you are going to simulate load you need to build, buy or download one. Building is far from easy, free downloads may or may not meet your requirements, and you may or may not have the budget to buy a tool. Browse through this forum and look for discussions about choosing a tool. Here is an example http://www.qaforums.com/Forum2/HTML/000725.html

3) Capacity planning is almost another activity altogether. We could recommend some books for you. Unless what you are talking about is determining the capacity of your current system. In which case, just keep increasing your (well designed and modeled) load until you find it!

Please take a look at those links and come back with your follow up questions.

posted 10-28-2002 11:05 AM         

quote:

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Originally posted by ioleann:
VB and the server part actually is an Access DB

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With this kind of setup do not even bother looking at tools, just a handfull of people will be able to put significant load on your setup.

The access DB here will be your main limiting factor.

posted 11-28-2002 12:21 AM         

as you mentioned earlier, just a handful of people will be able to put significant load on your setup. But in absense of the performacne/load testing tools how one can measure the performance parameters ?
Is it possible to measure the same manually ?

posted 11-28-2002 10:10 AM         

Let the users whoexecute your test work according to a scenario and let them log the amount of activity and response times they go through when testing.

It is all manual work but the above will give you the information that will allow you to make an assessment on the quality, scalability and performance of your application.