Web app load testing tool monitors user experience |
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By Michelle Davidson, Editor in Chief
27 May 2008 | SearchSoftwareQuality.com |
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When it comes to Web application performance, the user experience is critical. That's particularly true if your application is an ecommerce website where a bad experience can result in loss in sales.
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We've taken a step beyond traditional load testing and are focusing on the user experience because that's where the revenue comes from.
Patrick Lightbody
QA solutions product manager, Gomez Inc.
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Load testing tools can help you identify performance problems in the application and on the network, but they don't tell you what the user experience is, said Patrick Lightbody, QA solutions product manager at Gomez Inc.
Now, with Gomez's Reality Load XF you can keep track of both. It is a load testing tool specifically designed to ensure end-user Web experiences scale under load, Lightbody said.
"We do this by combining high-volume application load testing with broad geographic experience testing," he said. "We've taken a step beyond traditional load testing and are focusing on the user experience because that's where the revenue comes from."
Through its Last Mile Network, a global network of 40,000 end-user-owned desktops, Reality Load XF generates real-world, browser-driven traffic, Lightbody said.
Companies who would use Reality Load XF include those who are launching new Web applications to determine how much of a load the websites can handle and ensure the end-user experience is acceptable. Companies could also use the tool during change management when changes are made to the application or the infrastructure, and they could use them for key events and business changes, such as holiday sales or special promotions.
"Customers find out not just did their CPU get high, but were the users affected. Did it take an extra minute to buy that book," Lightbody said.
Reality Load XF is composed of three components:
- Load generation -- offers consistent and clean load generation from a high-powered infrastructure
- Last Mile Network -- provides an end-user perspective from 40,000 locations in different geographic areas
- Network nodes -- offers baseline monitoring pre and post load from more than 100 global locations
What also sets Reality Load XF apart from other load testing tools is that it's an on-demand external load testing tool that doesn't require customers also sign up for services.
"It does not require a costly team of consultants and scheduling in advance, and most customers can be set up and running within an hour," Lightbody said.
Reality Load XF is available via annual subscriptions May 27, 2008 in the U.S.
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