As clients modernize their applications and their associated delivery processes one thing we are hearing from them clearly is that their need to validate these applications under load is a top priority. In order to meet this demand we have been working closely with cloud delivery teams to build a solution which enables users to scale their existing performance test capabilities from local PCs, to Cloud hosted and Hybrid scenarios.

This new capability provides clients with the flexibility to simply ‘get it done’ with Cloud rather than expend the time setting up a traditional performance test lab – buying hardware, installing software, configuring everything, etc. With Performance Tester on Cloud users can create a Performance Tester case and have it running at scale in minutes.

​This ability to dynamically scale load testing to the cloud enables our customers to validate their ‘Major Customer Event’ scenarios, events such as releasing concert tickets for the latest hit band on a promotions site, or preparing for your annual sales days such as ‘Black Friday’ in the US, where sites and services are under extreme stress all day as customers race to get the best deal or the right seat at the concert.

​Along with all of this, we are also aware that businesses are selling products and services on the global market and the user experience for their customers in every region needs to be on parity, or else they risk losing market opportunities to their competitors. We have been working to deliver our cloud based solution and have taken advantage of the strengths of the Cloud platform to deliver load distribution from data centers across the globe. 

For customers who load balance on the US East Coast and Ireland in Europe – a common configuration – answering the question ‘do I need another data center?’ is important for ensuring customer satisfaction and maintaining good brand reputation. Using Performance Tester on Cloud from data centers in Australasia for example can help determine what your user experience will be like for customers in those markets. Additionally, as data security requirements such as the European ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ (GDPR) become more prevalent, being able to test from specific data centers without transmitting sensitive data outside the locale is crucial.

However, it is not just traditional protocol-based performance tests that Performance Tester on Cloud is bringing to the table. Increasingly we’re hearing from clients that they want to validate the on-browser behavior and response times. Knowing that the response comes back in time doesn’t tell you what the page render time impact may be. Performance Tester on Cloud now includes dedicated Web UI load testing to enable clients to be sure that JavaScript processing time for responsive sites does not adversely impact their load targets.

Performance Tester on Cloud offers both pay-per-use and monthly subscriptions, and can be found here.

So, I want to leave you with one last thing. We don’t want getting started with Cloud-based Performance testing to be difficult, or costly. Therefore, we have made available the Starter Edition of Performance Tester which can be downloaded for no-charge here.

With the Starter Edition, you can build HTTP based performance tests and execute them on the Cloud, whilst paying only for the cloud hours you consume and not for the software to get you there.

We hope you like using Performance Tester on Cloud and if you do (or don’t), we would love to get your feedback!
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Chris Haggan Product Manager Functional & Performance Test Connect with me on LinkedIn

Chris Haggan is the HCL Product Manager, Functional & Performance Test Automation and a member of the World Wide Testing team with over 14 years in the integration testing and service virtualization space. He has worked with numerous clients ensuring that when they modernize and connect their disparate IT systems be it through EAI, SOA or API's, they are successful and efficient.