Introducing QuickStorm – LoadStorm

Here at LoadStorm, we’re happy to announce one of our newest, free features! Are you interested in web development? Have you creating your own site? QuickStorms are a great tool to get initial insight into site performance, and can also be used as a tool to benchmark performance before making performance enhancements on your site.

What is a QuickStorm?

QuickStorms are small, short load tests that can be used to evaluate site performance. All you have to do is enter your site’s URL. LoadStorm will generate a load test against the URL, scaling from 1 – 10 virtual users over 10 minutes.

How it works

LoadStorm PRO automatically creates a recording of every request made on the URL you provide. Next, we simulate the traffic escalating from one to ten virtual users, targeting that URL.

Try a QuickStorm test of 10 users on your site by entering the URL here:

Test Results Overview:

Summary

The test results summary provides totals for key metrics from the test. The total amount of requests as well as the overall average response times for those requests are displayed.
Since it’s a QuickStorm, there will only be one script. All of the servers used for the URL will be displayed, so if you want to view performance by servers, you can filter for that.

What you want to see here:
In general, you want to see good average response times, peak response times that are near the average, no errors, and low throughput. In addition, low total data transferred is a good sign. It’s a good idea to avoid page bloat.

Response

This includes all the response times data for the site. Every request included on the site is displayed, detailing the amount of time each resource was requested, the size of the request, the average amount of time it took to get a response, and the peak amount of time it took to get a response.

What you want to see here:
Good response times for requests are under 250 ms, while 500 ms is still generally acceptable. Any longer and you’ll be in trouble if the volume of traffic increases.

Errors

If any errors occurred during the test, they will be shown here. The number of errors and the types will be shown here. The Errors by Resource table will list which resources yielded errors. Usually, errors won’t occur at such a low volume of traffic, but there are some times web developers are simply unaware of the problem. Eliminating these errors is an easy way to boost performance.

What you want to see here:
You want to see 0 errors here. Any errors here should be completely unacceptable. You can do better than that!

Pages

In LoadStorm, pages refer to each unique web page hit. Since QuickStorms are only performed on a single URL, you can expect to see only that single page listed here. Statistics for this page include the number of times each page was requested. For QuickStorms, this number usually reaches just over 100 times. This means your page was visited by virtual users just over 100 times in ten minutes!

During a regular load test, you would typically make a recording of several different pages to mimic the traffic you expect to see on your site. For example, a blog would include a recording of a user browsing to the homepage as well as many different posts.

What you want to see here:
You want to see a zero failures for your page. When it comes to average and peak completion times, you should aim for pages completing in under 5 seconds.

Transactions

This is a feature you won’t be able to experience through QuickStorms, so you can expect to not see any data here. A transaction is a collection of requests that you designate in order to monitor specific site transactions. One example of this would be a search transaction. It’s important to have stellar performance in this area, and by selecting to monitor the search transaction, you can get feedback here.

What you want to see here:
Nothing. To use the transaction feature, sign up for a free account with LoadStorm PRO.

Requests by Time

This data includes the results of the different requests, summarized by time. Here you can easily view any differences in response times between the first minute of the test (1 vuser) and the last minute of the test (10 concurrent users).

What you want to see here:
You want to see comparable response times at the beginning of the test, and the end of the test. Drastic differences can point to an underlying problem that’s just waiting to be exposed.

Export

All of the raw test result data is available for download in a CSV file. Like the Requests by Time, this data usually becomes available within 10 minutes of test completion. If you would just like to show off your results, we also have the test statistics compiled for export as a CSV report.

What you want to see here:
Your site’s excellent results in a pretty report you can show off to your friends or enemies! Try it! It’s fun! And you get a URL you can share. Please note that QuickStorms are limited to 10 per day!