How to Load Test:
Load testing can be a very difficult and time consuming process, but with LoadStorm LITE, load testing is easy and provides results within minutes. Using LoadStorm LITE to load test can be broken into seven simple steps:
- Add and verify a server
- Create a plan
- Build scenario(s)
- Add steps to each scenario
- Customize user data for forms (if needed)
- Run a load test
- Analyze the results
LoadStorm LITE Learning Center
Servers
Plans
Scenarios
Steps
Forms
Run
Analyze
Part 1: Add a Server
1. Once you’ve logged into your LoadStorm account go to the Build tab.
2. Next click the Add Server button.
3. Now fill in the appropriate fields.
- Note: http:// or https:// will automatically append to the beginning of the server URL from the drop-down box so you do not need it in the URL field.
- Additionally this is where you can specify a custom port number, or setup basic authentication if needed to access your server.
- The preemptive mode check box allows the basic authentication credentials to be sent with the initial request instead of first waiting for a response from the server requesting the credentials. Try this option if you’re having trouble with verifying through basic authentication.
Part 2: Verifying a Server
- To verify your server there are two options.
- Create an html file named loadstorm-{insert verification number}.html and put the file in your server’s root directory.
- Or you can add the verification code of loadstorm-{insert verification number} into a comment tag of your homepage. It is placed in a comment tag’s content so as not to display it on the page. See example below.
- After following one of the two options click on the Verify Now link to check the server for the code.
- Once verified you can remove the verification file or code from your server.
- If you have trouble with verification please contact us at support@loadstorm.com
Example html with verification code inside a comment:
<HTML>
<!-- loadstorm-123456 -->
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Website</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Hello World!
</BODY>
</HTML>
Creating a Plan
- Creating a Plan – A Plan is a portfolio which must contain one or more scenarios for testing.
1. Make sure you’re on the Build tab.
2. Next click the Add Plan button.
3. Then fill in the details of your plan.
4. Finally click Save.
Adding a Scenario
- Adding a Scenario – A scenario is a collection of steps for a vuser to perform.
1. Make sure you’re on the Build tab.
2. Next click on the name of your plan.
3. Now click the Add Scenario button.
4. Then fill out the details of your scenario.
Weighting:
When you use multiple scenarios in a plan, you use the weighting to allocate what percentage of the VUsers will follow each scenario. The weighting numbers are all relative to one another. For example, if you have 4 scenarios all with a weight of 1, the VUsers will be distributed evenly at 25% for each scenario.
Or you can weight scenarios by percentage if you are careful to add all scenarios up to 100. For example:
50% Browsing = Weight 50
25% Adding items to shopping cart = Weight 25
20% Logging in = Weight 20
5% Completing checkout = Weight 5
Form Data:
If you need to submit a form in the scenario, select which form data set to use from the drop down menu. See the full section on forms for more information.
5. Finally click Save.
Adding Steps
1. Make sure you’re on the Build tab.
2. Next click on the name of your plan.
3. Now click the name of your scenario that you want to add steps to.
4. Then click Add Step.
5. When entering the uniform resource identifier (URI) do not include the address of the server. For example the address www.example.com/URI-path is where you want to go, but you select your target server which is www.example.com below the text box and now you just need to enter “/URI-path” in the text field. By entering a “/” by itself the domain will look like www.example.com/ and take you to the homepage. Then click Save.
6. If the previous step processed correctly, you should see a preview of the page as well as transfer and duration information.
7. To add additional steps, click new step. You can then choose to open a new page, click a link, or submit a form. If you select Click a link
, a table of links available on the current page will appear. Select a specific link for every VUser to click or check the box next Click a random link for each VUser to click a different link.
8. If you select Submit form, tabs will appear with forms available on the current page. Choose which form you want the VUsers to submit by selecting that tab. Then choose to use either a constant value for every VUser to submit or click form data to select individual form fills for each VUser. See the following section on Forms for more information.
9. If you want to reorder the steps in a scenario, click the Reorder Steps button.
10. Then click and drag each step into the desired order and then click Save Order.
Additional Information in our Knowledgebase
- Adding Steps – Goes into further detail about adding steps to a scenario.
- VUsers Simulating Realistic Traffic – Gives details on how to get your steps to make the VUsers simulate realistic traffic.
- Creating Login Scenarios and Using Data Sets – Gives details on how to get VUsers to login or use data sets for multiple actions in a single step or set of steps.
Submitting a Form
LoadStorm allows you to customize your load tests by having each VUser submit forms with unique data such as email, username, and password. There are three parts to submitting a form:
- Upload User Data CSV
- Select which Set of Form Data to use in the Scenario
- Create a Step for the form
1. Click on Build in the top navigation.
2. Your LoadStorm LITE account comes with three sets of ready to use user data. To review these form data sets, click on the name Tiny, Small or Huge. Each of these sets contain email, first name, last name, password, and username for as many unique VUsers as rows.
3. To upload your own CSV of user data, click the Upload CSV button. Make sure that you are using a CSV file as normal Excel files will not upload correctly. Also make sure that the first row contains column names so that you can easily identify which column to use for each line of a form.
4. Name your form data set, choose the file, and click Upload.
5. Once you have uploaded your CSV (or decided to use one of the data sets in LoadStorm), open a plan, then click on the name of the scenario you want to use or add a new scenario.
6. If using an existing scenario, click Edit.
7. Select the desired Form data set from the dropdown menu and click Save.
8. Build steps to navigate to a page or open the page with the form and click the New Step button.
9. Click Submit form and then tabs will appear with the selection of forms available on the current page. Choose which form you want the VUsers to submit by selecting that tab. Then choose to use either a constant value for every VUser to submit or click form data to select individual form fills for each VUser. Then choose which column of your uploaded CSV or the system’s data to use for each field.
Run a Test
1. Make sure you’re on the Run tab.
2. Next click the Add Load Test button.
3. Set when you want the test to run. To run the test right away, check the box next to Start load test as soon as possible.
4. To schedule the test in the future, click the calendar icon next to Start and select the desired date and time.
5. Parameterize the load test:
- Select the ramp pattern for linear or step up. A linear pattern will add 1 VUser at a time and a step-up pattern will increase by a set number of VUsers every number of set minutes.
- [INSERT IMAGE MADE IN PRO TO ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE!]
- Set the start and peak concurrent users
- If using a step up ramp pattern, set the step time and step increase to fit your needs.
6. Finally, click Save and the test will run right away or at the scheduled time.
Analyze
1. To analyze the results of a load test, click Analyze in the top navigation.
2. Click the View Results button next to the test that you want to view.
3. The first table is a summary table that contains statistics for the entire test run.
4. The first graph shows throughput, user load, and requests per second. Hover over the graph to see the specific numbers for each one minute interval.
5. The second graph shows average response time, peak response time, and error rate. This graph allows you to assess how your website or application is responding under load.
6. Under the graphs are buttons to show requests by Elapsed Time, Error Code, and Response Time. There is also a button to Download as CSV which will allow you to download a CSV file of all the raw data from the test for further in-depth analysis.
Requests by Elapsed Time allows you to see which requests were made at any specific time during the test. This can help identify bottlenecks if you see a significant problem at a specific minute of the test.
Requests by Error Code allows you to see which errors codes are being returned and the frequency of each. It also allows you to identify which resources were associated with which error code.
Requests by Response Time allows you to identify bottlenecks by showing which resources have the slowest average response times throughout the test.
