Load Testing

The Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR)

Computer Measurement Group (CMG) holds annual International CMG Conferences, has many regional US groups and International groups
         CMG conference proceedings from 1997 through 2005

Software Test & Performance Collaborative publishes Software Test & Performance Magazine and organizes Software Test & Performance Conference
          STPCon Spring 2009 Presentations

SQE publishes Better Software Magazine and organizes STAR (Software Testing Analysis & Review) and Better Software conferences, runs StickyMinds.com testing portal

Association for Software Testing (AST)

First TPC Technology Conference on Performance Evaluation & Benchmarking (TPC TC) colocated with VLDB09 (Very Large Data Bases)

Scott Barber's site, don't miss Publications and Presentations

LoadTester.com includes library and articles, mainly for LoadRunner

Microsoft's Patterns & Practices Performance Testing Guidance project

QA Forums  includes "Performance & Load Testing" and many load testing tools forums and QALinks

Wilson Mar's performance testing notes

Performance Testing : KnowledgeBase from Roland Stens

JakeBrake's blog

Dan Downing / Mentora white papers

Load/Performance Testing Resources from LogiGear

White Papers from CSS (ReadyTestGo)

The world's only blog on load testing by Stuart Moncrieff, a lot of good LoadRunner info

Jason Harris' "Captain LoadTest" Blog

Corey Goldberg's Blog

Performance Engineering News, Avinash Mangipudi's blog

Keynote Resource Library has some interesting white papers as well as description of their performance management services

Gomez whitepapers (you need to fill a form to get them)

Also check load testing tool vendor's sites for white papers (usually registration required)

See about Performance Requirements are in the Performance Design section

Wikipedia about Software Performance Testing

Load Testing Terminology by Scott Stirling

Introduction to Performance Testing; The Who, What, Where, When and Why by Scott Barber

Testing for performance Part 1: Assess the problem space Part 2: Build out the test assets Part 3: Provide information by Michael Kelly

Template: Load Test Plan  by Rajeev J (some things are LoadRunner-specific)

Load Testing: Points to Ponder by Alexander Podelko

The Top 13 Mistakes in Load Testing Applications by Mark D. Anderson

Performance Testing Case Study, Part 1: Developing the Test Strategy by Ross Collard

Getting Things Done: Practical Web/e-Commerce Application Stress Testing by Robert Sabourin

Load Testing, Benchmarking, and Application Performance Management for the Web by Daniel A. Menascé

Load Testing of Web Sites by Daniel A. Menascé

Scott Barber's interview

High Performance Testing by Scott Barber

Tester PI: Performance Investigator by Scott Barber

Critical Success Factors for Load Test Projects by Mark McWhinney

Tuning Your Stress Test Harness by Kirk Pepperdine

Tales from the Lab: Best Practices in Application Performance Testing by Ellen Friedman

Real-World Load Testing Tips to Avoid Bottlenecks When Your Web App Goes Live by Jeff Dunmall and Keith Clarke

An introduction to non-functional testing by Stuart Reid and Julian Harty

Performance testing Java servlet-based Web applications: A guide for software test engineers by Len DiMaggio

Analyzing Performance-Testing Results to Correlate Performance Plateaus and Stress Areas by Michael Kelly.

Bottlenecks

Bottlenecks Exposed by Dan Downing

How to Identify the Usual Performance Suspects by Scott Barber

Diagnosing Symptoms of Poor System Performance by Scott Barber

Rapid Bottleneck Identification, white paper from Empirix, nothing is Empirix-specific

Load Testing Tools

Load Testing Tools by Wilson Mar

I am aware about four "universal" (supporting multiple protocols) load testing tools :

HP LoadRunner (former Mercury)
          HP LoadRunner and Performance Center Blog
          LoadRunner Tutorial
          Wilson Mar's LoadRunner notes
          Wilson Mar's scripting notes
          Yahoo Group
          Learn LoadRunner blog
          Dmitry Motevich's blog
          SAP Cheat Sheet for Performance Testers by Stuart Moncrieff
           Performance Testing Citrix Applications Using LoadRunner: Citrix Virtual User Best Practices by Tim Chase
           LoadRunner Winsock Tutorial
          Performance Testing, LoadRunner Tips&Tricks blog
          Using LoadRunner with Oracle Applications Release 12 by Mentora Group
          Using LoadRunner for Unsupported or Difficult to Parameterize Protocols

Rational Performance Tester
           Using Rational Performance Tester Version 7 IBM Redbook
           Rational manuals
           "User Experience, not Metrics" and "Beyond Performance Testing" by Scott Barber
           Custom Load Generation with Rational TestManager
           Using a LoadRunner workload as a model for a Rational workload by Yuriy Veytsman
           IBM Rational Performance Tester on Windows 2000 and Linux: A scalability comparison by Yuriy Veytsman
           IBM Rational Performance Optimization Toolkit for Rational Performance Tester
           Use IBM Rational Testing Tools for Effective Performance Monitoring of Apache Web Servers by Matthew Adcock
           An Experience Using Rational PerformanceTester to Benchmark Oracle EnterpriseOne IBM Redpaper
           Michael Kelly's writing
           IBM Rational Performance Tester and IBM WebSphere MQ: Performing MQ data correlation through sockets by Francisco Sambade

Micro Focus (former Borland, former Segue) SilkPerformer. Segue white papers.

Micro Focus (former Compuware) QALoad

Oracle Application Testing Suite (formerly e-Test Suite from Empirix) probably is the best-known Web-only commercial tool, several good white papers (Empirix still provides solutions for VoIP, IMS, and Contact Centers - Hammer; Empirix white papers).
    Alex Amat's blog

RadView WebLOAD
RadView Software sponsored WebLOAD Open Source Load Generation Engine

WAPT is a load and stress testing tool for web interface, inexpensive ($350 per installation), free trial
     WAPT 4.0: Web Site Load, Stress and Performance Testing

There are many specialised load testing tools, many for Web or database testing. See, for example:
http://www.softwareqatest.com/qatweb1.html
http://testingfaqs.org/t-load.html

Here is the list of open source load testing tools:
http://www.opensourcetesting.org/performance.php

A couple of open source tools that looks more mature:

OpenSTA Originally developed by Cyrano as a commercial tool. OpenSTA stands for Open Systems Testing Architecture. Another branch of the Cyrano code is a commercial tool QTest from Quotium.
     OpenSTA versus LoadRunner by Andy O’Brien and Antony Marcano of etest associates
     Danny Faught's review of OpenSTA in Open Testware Reviews

Apache JMeter
     Load Testing your Applications with Apache JMeter by Keld H. Hansen
     JMeter Links a big collections of links from JMeter site

Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform Project

Hardware appliances can be useful if it is necessary to simulate a big number of users with limited scripting requirements. For example, Spirent Avalanche, Antara FlameThrower, and Ixia products.

An Overview of Load Test Tools by Julien Buret and Nicolas Droze (2003), includes OpenSTA, DieselTest, TestMaker, Grinder, LoadSim, JMeter, LoadTest, Rubis

Load Test Tools Evaluation by Abraham Jacob et al. (2002)

Stress, Load, Volume, Performance, Benchmark and Base Line Testing Tool Evaluation and Comparison by Cordell Vail

Shunra Software products allow real network simulation during load testing. Integrated with LoadRunner.

iTrinegy (former Itheon) WAN / Network emulation

The TesLA (Test Lab Automation) Alliance is an open industry alliance of IP test vendors

Benchmarking

Wikipedia about Benchmarking

Transaction Processing Performance Council TPC Benchmarks

Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC)

The Business Applications Performance Council (BAPCo)

Ideas International Benchmark Gateway different benchmark results

The Performance Database Server (PDS) different benchmark results

Database Benchmarking Wiki

Oracle Applications Benchmark

SAP Standard Application Benchmarks

Intel Server Performance server benchmark results

AMD Opteron Processor Server and Workstation Benchmarks

Sun Benchmarks

Windows Server 2003 Benchmarks

Wilson Mar about Multi-Tier Reference Apps for Benchmarking

50 TB Data Warehouse Benchmark on IBM System z IBM Redbook

AC&NC collection of I/O benchmarks

VMware VMmark virtualization benchmark

Benchmarking Directory

Compiler Connection's benchmark resource page

Generic Testing

Some links to general testing sites (in addition to mentioned above).

testingReflections.com testing blogs

SearchSoftwareQuality.com from TechTarget

The Automated Testing Institute (ATI) Online Reference

Software Testing Hotlist Resources for Professional Software Testers by Bret Pettichord

Testing Resources from LogiGear (including Load/Performance Test Plan Template)

Tools and articles from PushToTest (SOA testing) and Frank Cohen's blog

Robert Sabourin's site

Cem Kaner's site

James Bach's site

Douglas Hoffman's site

Michael Kelly's site

Karen Johnson's site

Brian Marick's site

Michael Bolton's site

Elisabeth Hendrickson's site

Jonathan Kohl's site

Grig Gheorghiu's articles and blog

Testing Education Center for Software Testing Education & Research: Black Box Testing Course and much more

Test Driven Development community

Software Testing Club

Software Testing Wiki

Applied Testing and Technology (ApTest) a big list of links

SQAtester.com Online Software Testing and Resourse Center

comp.software.testing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Test and Measurement World (electronic)

Books

Start from Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications

Click on the book or its title below to see book information and reviews (if available) on Amazon.com