I’m going to break down the importance of load testing for any beginners, and I’ll move on to the grittier stuff in my next post.
Would you build something without testing to see if it could handle it’s intended maximum capacity? Would you finish putting together a chair without checking to see if it could handle it’s maximum weight?
The idea of not testing these limitations seems pretty careless, and I’m sure as the manufacturer of that chair, your reputation would take a big hit, like that poor guy’s derriere.
The same goes for everything online. It’s all still created and built, and you still need to test whether that build can handle what it’s supposed to.
King Penguins by D-Stanley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
I’m sorry, did you say something?
‘..So I’ll get all my friends and family to go on my website at the same time, and see what happens?’
Good luck with that, and don’t blame me if your friends think you’ve lost your marbles! After all, you are listening to a green penguin…
There are countless tools out there that load test your site for you. Instead of getting a crew of (let’s face it, less than impressed) mates to sit around pressing buttons, you can set up ‘virtual users’ which in effect make the same web requests a real user would. These tools allow you to simply pick how many users you want, press ‘Go’, and then receive a full report at the end.
‘Why should I pick you over these other tools you mentioned?’
Firstly, because I thought we were becoming friends. Secondly, TestZoo is a brand new tool, the next generation. Our team are striving for innovation and new ideas. This is the beginning of a product that is constantly being worked on by a team of inspired and passionate developers. We listen to everyone, so we can make this everyone’s go-to testing platform.
‘That sounds pretty cool. How much is this going to cost me, though?’
One million pounds. OK fine, how about nothing? While we are in beta, TestZoo is completely free, though we have limited the usage for obvious reasons. When we go live officially, there will and will always be a free version.
Written by Pierre
Pierre is a web testing expert/model/Vimto enthusiast/penguin who does not like being picked up.
“I’m Pierre. I’m the face of TestZoo. But I’m not just a pretty face, I’m an expert in web testing in the cloud (I don’t mean to brag, but that’s darn impressive for a penguin).”