How to Emulate Web Traffic Using Standard Load Testing Tools

The following abstract has been submitted to CMG 2016:

How to Emulate Web Traffic Using Standard Load Testing Tools

James Brady (State of Nevada) and Neil Gunther (Performance Dynamics)

Conventional load-testing tools are based on a fifty year old time-share computer paradigm where a finite number of users submit requests and respond in a synchronized fashion. Conversely, modern web traffic is essentially asynchronous and driven by an unknown number of users. This difference presents a conundrum for testing the performance of modern web applications. Even when the difference is recognized, performance engineers often introduce virtual-user script modifications based on hearsay; much of which leads to wrong results. We present a coherent methodology for emulating web traffic that can be applied to existing test tools.

Keywords: load testing, workload simulation, web applications, software performance engineering, performance modeling

Related blog posts:

1. Emulating Web Traffic in Load Tests
2. Mapping Virtual Users to Real Users
3. How to Extend Load Tests with PDQ