How It Works

StresStimulus records application scenarios and then replays them to emulate users' impact on web infrastructure by creating virtual users (VUs). While VUs are accessing the web pages simultaneously, StresStimulus monitors server operation and analyzes response time from the end-users' perspective. Performance analytics collected during the tests are used to make correct technical and business decisions impacting application responsiveness.

Recording a Test Scenario and Enhancing the Script

To record a test scenario, simply navigate your app's UI from a web client such as web browser or mobile device. StresStimulus intercepts web traffic, breaks it down into business transactions and generates an automatic testing script. Subsequently, the script can be enhanced to provide broader test coverage. For example, you can create several VU groups replaying different recorded scenarios to emulate various categories of users or mimic a user's entry of predefined or random sets of data. To achieve higher testing accuracy, many real-world parameters, such as a mix of web browser and Internet connection pipes relevant to your user base can be emulated. No scripting is required, but a scripting engine is available for complex tests.

Running and Monitoring the Test

During a test run, StresStimulus creates application load to test normal and peak operation of your production environment. To factor the geographical distribution of the end-user population, the VUs can be dynamically instantiated across multiple agent-machines in selected locations in the cloud. At the same time, StresStimulus monitors targeted server and consolidates key performance indicators (KPI) along with server infrastructure parameters from these locations and displays real-time graphs with performance metrics. Any thresholds violations and errors are displayed as they occur. This allows to examine application tolerance to changing load traffic intensity, and helps to expose performance bottlenecks and technical infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Analyzing Test Results

After test completion, StresStimulus creates interactive reports, presenting a comprehensive performance profile of every test case, transaction, web page and request. It displays which performance targets were missed along with the conditions causing violations of the response time goal compliance. You can define your own validation criteria and examine every error and timeout exposed under load. Base on that, StresStimulus exposes speed problem areas, isolates performance bottlenecks and evaluates target scalability in near real-world conditions.