I want to load test my new website. Where do I begin?

Here are some easy steps to follow in order to sucessfully do a load testing session for your newly created website.

Cloud Testing Platform

Choose a cloud-based load testing platform: There are a few options available for setting up a cloud-based load testing platform. Popular options include open source solutions such as JMeter, as well as cloud-based services from providers such as LoadFocus.

Objectives

Establish test objectives: You should define the objectives of your load test before you begin. Do you want to measure performance of the website under heavy loads? Or do you want to measure responsiveness with users accessing the website in different geographic locations?

Configuration

Determine the load size and type: Load size is the amount of traffic the website will receive during the test. Depending on the objectives of the test, you can vary the size of the load to accurately gauge the website’s performance. You should also define the type of load the website will receive (for example, a combination of GET and POST requests).

Execution

Generate tests and run them: Once you have defined the type and size of the load, you can use a load testing tool to generate scripts and create load tests. Most load testing platforms also allow you to configure and run tests in a repeatable way.

Reports

Analyze the results and make adjustments: After the test has been run, you should analyze the results and identify any potential performance issues. If any are identified, you can make adjustments to the website code or infrastructure to address them. Generate PDF reports to share the easily with peers.

When you think about load testing, you should look after the biggest challenges:

1. Simulating real user traffic: One of the biggest challenges in performance and load testing of websites and APIs is simulating real user traffic. This requires accurate modeling of user behaviour, including multiple sessions and concurrent requests.
2. Stress testing: Stress testing is used to identify the maximum load a system can handle before it breaks. This requires running tests with increasingly heavier loads until the system fails, which can be difficult to accurately predict.
3. Scalability testing: Scalability testing is used to determine how the system performs when the load increases. This can be difficult to accurately predict and measure, as the system may not be able to handle the additional load in a linear fashion.
4. Memory Leaks: Memory leaks can be difficult to identify, as they are often caused by low-level code bugs. Performance and load testing can help identify memory leaks, but they can be difficult to accurately pinpoint and fix.
5. Bottlenecks: Bottlenecks can be difficult to identify, as they are often caused by a combination of factors, such as hardware limitations or inefficient coding. Performance and load testing can help identify bottlenecks, but they can be difficult to accurately pinpoint and fix.

Hope all comes in handy and now you have a few more real steps to get you started.

Good luck with your testing!

Written by Bogdan V.

LoadFocus is a cloud testing platform, a load and stress testing tool which provides the infrastructure to run tests with thousands of concurrent users, from multiple cloud locations, in less than a few minutes, keep history of the results, compare different runs to inspect performance improvements or performance degradation. It also supports running JMeter load tests from the cloud and monitoring and audit web and mobile performance.

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