Validating the accuracy of testing web application performance is not a simple task. Validating load testing results is much tougher, because load testing adds several dimensions of complexity.
First, a load test deals not with a single page, but with a test case that typically includes many pages. Secondly, server objects are subjected to testing not once, but over multiple iterations that may last not seconds, but minutes or hours. Thirdly, during the load test, the server handles requests not from a single client, but from multiple virtual users, whose number may vary. At the same time, just like in performance testing, a load testing tool must collect detailed and aggregated performance data for every HTTP transaction. This required collecting and processing much greater amounts of information.
As an end user, you need to have confidence in your load testing tool numbers. This means that you should be able to independently and quickly verify your load testing results. Another benefit of this ability to audit the results of your load test is that it helps to better understand what each parameter means and how it was measured or calculated. After you learn how to verify your StresStimulus performance report, it will be much easier to read and interpret its numbers. This however is not that simple because of the huge amounts of data to verify and the lack of easy to use monitoring tools.
Fortunately, StresStimulus allows to verify virtually every number without being drawn into an exhausting number-crunching research project using other monitoring tools. This is thanks to its tight integration with Fiddler, an outstanding Web debugging proxy.
Fiddler earned the trust of many millions of users worldwide. It is in circulation since 2003, and it is gaining popularity ever since. According to its creator Eric Lawrence, the number of Fiddler downloads in the first 4 months of 2011 reached about 2 million.
StresStimulus numbers can be independently, accurately and easily verified using Fiddler. This blog is the first one in the series of the following six blogs that will describe step-by-step verification process:
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