Load Testing
Organizations
The Workshop
on Performance and Reliability (WOPR)
Publications
Software Test & Performance Magazine
Better
Software Magazine
Sites
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
StickyMinds.com testing portal,
there are performance testing papers
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
CMG conference proceedings from 1997 through 2005 a unique collection of papers about capacity planning, performance engineering, and performance management
Keynote
Resource Library has some interesting white papers (you need to fill a form
to get them) as well as description of their performance management services
Jim Pensyl's performance testing site
Dan Downing / Mentora white papers
Load/Performance Testing Resources from LogiGear
Tools and articles from PushToTest
(SOA testing) and Frank Cohen's blog
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
Also check load testing tool vendor's sites
for white papers (usually registration required)
Generic
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)
Effective Load Testing
see pp.33-39
The Top 13 Mistakes in Load Testing Applications by Mark D. Anderson
Performance Methodology, Terminology and Concepts Tutorial from Intel
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
Getting a Diagnosis With
.NET by Joe Fernandes, see pp. 33-36
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
A metric
for predicting the performance of an application under a growing workload by E.
J. Weyuker and A. Avritzer
Analyzing Performance-Testing Results to Correlate Performance Plateaus and Stress Areas by Michael Kelly.
Bottlenecks
Bottlenecks Exposed!
by Daniel Downing, see pp.20-26
How to Identify the
Usual Performance Suspects by Scott Barber, see pp.20-29
Diagnosing Symptoms of
Poor System Performance by Scott Barber, see pp.14-20
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)
Wilson Mar's LoadRunner notes
Wilson Mar's scripting notes
Yahoo
Group
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
Oracle Performance Testing by Caleb Billingsley
LoadRunner Winsock Tutorial
Performance Testing, LoadRunner Tips&Tricks blog
Using
LoadRunner for Unsupported or Difficult to Parameterize Protocols
Rational Performance Tester
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
Michael Kelly's
articles and presentations
IBM Rational Performance Tester and IBM WebSphere MQ: Performing MQ data
correlation through sockets by Francisco Sambade
Borland (former Segue) SilkPerformer. Good
white papers.
Compuware QALoad
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
Oracle Load Testing for Web Applications (former Empirix
e-Load) 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).
Visual Studio
2008 (and 2005) Team System includes
a load testing tool
Microsoft's Patterns & Practices Performance Testing
Guidance project
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
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. By the way,
Avalanche is integrated with Mercury LoadRunner
"allowing you to generate large-scale, network-realistic load with Avalanche
while performing
sophisticated application load tests with LoadRunner."
Comparisons
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
Related Tools
Shunra Software
products allow real network simulation during load testing. Integrated with
LoadRunner.
iTrinegy (former Itheon) WAN / Network emulation
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
Sun UltraSPARC Servers: Industry-Leading Benchmarks
Windows Server 2003 Benchmarks
Wilson Mar about Multi-Tier Reference Apps for Benchmarking
AC&NC collection of I/O benchmarks
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
Software Testing Hotlist
Resources for Professional Software Testers by
Bret Pettichord
Testing Resources from LogiGear (including Load/Performance Test Plan Template)
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)
Association for Software Testing (AST)
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