[Webtest] Turning WebTest tests into concurrent load tests.

[Siegfried Goeschl]

Hi folks,

some thoughts along the line

+) Canoo WebTest is not a load testing tool - at the end of the day it 
does do too much to produce high load easily
+) load testing tools are not functional test tools because it would 
make them slow - and don't forget the reporting part of load testing tools
+) I do agree that there is some  overlap but you are looking at two 
different type of tools.

So these are things I do

+) create a Canoo WebTest covering most of the application
+) write a simple JMeter test to capture the the common use cases with 
minimal verification
+) fine tune the JMeter test to create realistic load (this is the hard  
part - creating test data, ensure that the tests executed reflect the 
current/anticipated user behaviour - this sometimes involves creating 
millions of database records and analyzing gigs of access logs)
+) run the JMeter tests in parallel to the Canoo webtests

So i can gather my performance data and still be sure that the 
functional tests pass when running high load (the maven plugins have a 
"loop" command to execute the webtest until the first problem is 
encountered). At the end of the day I try to combine the sweet spots of 
a functional and load test tool ...

Cheers,

Siegfried Goeschl





Sergio Bossa wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> I'm an happy WebTest user, and now I'd like to turn some tests I've
> written into load tests.
> Putting it simple, I just need to execute a whole webtest (but even a
> group of steps would be ok)  under concurrent load, by specifying the
> number of simulated users (that is, concurrent executions), a ramp-up
> period and optionally a schedule.
> I've tried to write some custom steps, but there seems to be
> synchronization problems, because WebTest APIs do not seem to be
> designed for working in a concurrent environment.
>
> So, I'd like to have some suggestions by the WebTest developers about
> how to implement such a feature.
> Currently, the main problem seems to be that the WebtestTask Context
> and the way it's used are not thread safe.
> Obviously, if I'll implement that successfully, I'll contribute it
> back to the WebTest community!
>
> Thanks,
> Cheers,
>
> Sergio B.
>
>