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A suggestion of great
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Before practicing these Tutorials
on "LoadRunner from HP", it is recommended that you acquire a
preliminary working knowledge of using this wonderful tool. This can be easily
attained by careful study of the "Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs" brought to you by this web site for the first time by Clicking
on the following link:
Brief
Introduction of Scenario: A scenario is a file
containing all the information about groups of Vusers which emulate human users
during our testing session.
It is a means through which we emulate a
real-life user. When we run a scenario, the Vusers generate load on the server,
and LoadRunner monitors the server and transaction
performance.
Objective of this
Tutorial:
Is to design a scenario, which can be used
to test an application under load. For
illustration purpose, we shall create emulate the actions of say ten travel
agents concurrently using the flight reservation system and analyze the
performance of the system under load.
We shall create a scenario, which
will emulate various actions performed by a group of ten travel agents. The user
actions can be simultaneously logging on to the system, searching various
flights, purchasing the desired flight tickets, checking itineraries and finally
logging off the system.
Basic steps
for designing a scenario for load testing are as under
Step
1: Launching LoadRunner & its Controller
Module:
a)Open the HP LoadRunner Launcher
window by clicking "Start" > "Programs" > "LoadRunner" >
"LoadRunner".
b) Open the LoadRunner Controller by clicking "Run
Load Tests" In the "Load Testing tab". "New Scenario dialog
box" shall open. Here we shall be able to select scripts for our new
scenario.
Step 2: Making a selection of
method of creation of scenario: out of two methods like 1) Manual
Scenario 2) Goal-Oriented Scenario in case we wish LoadRunner to create a
scenario for us.
In this tutorial we shall select a "Manual
Scenario".
Step 3: Adding a script
to the load test:
Select a script out of the list of
Scripts already available. Selected Scripts appear in the Scenario pane.
Alternatively we can click the "Browse" button & navigate to the
desired script ( for example: say basic_script) lying in our known directory.
For the sake of
illustration here we shall use just one Vuser script describing a single group
of users performing identical actions. Whereas in case of real world scenario
involving variety of user profiles, we can create different groups running
several scripts with different user settings.
Step
4: Defining the group attributes for the script: a) Locate the desired script: Navigate to find out that that our
desired script (basic_script in this case) appears in the Group Name column of
the Scenario Groups pane.
b) Change Scenario group
name: Select the script and click the
"Details" button to launch the "Group
Information" dialog box. Provide easily understandable enter a more
meaningful name, for example travel_agent.
c) Vusers Quantity:
Provide the desirednumber of Vusers intended to be created in the group.
Click
"OK" to display the name in the Scenario Groups pane under the Design
tab.
Step 5: Adding a load
generator or localhost: forcreating load on our
application by running the Vusers.
a) For using already available Load Generator: Click the "Load
Generators" button In the Design view to launch the "Load
Generators" dialog box.
b) For creating &
using a new Load Generator:
When the desired load generator
does not appear in the list, select "Add" from the Load Generator Name
list to launch the "Add New Load Generator" dialog box.
Provide the information like
"Name" of the load generator and the type of "Platform" on which
the load generator is running. Click "OK" to close the "Add New Load
Generator" dialog box.
Step 6: Testing the Load
Generator Connection:
Involves instructing the
Controller to make attempts to connect to the load generator
machine.
a) Select "localhost" and click
"Connect".
b) When the connection gets established, the status
changes from "Down" to "Ready". Click
"Close".
Step 7: Scheduling of
scenario in schedule pane of the Controller window:
In real world
scenario, the actual users do not log on and off the system exactly at the same
time. Here we instruct the LoadRunner users to gradually log on to and off the
system by scheduling the scenario.
As described in the
following "Scenario schedule" Dialog Box; Select "Scenario" radio
button under "Schedule by" and select "Real-life schedule" radio
button under "Run Mode".
Step 8: Setting the
schedule actions definitions in Actions Grid:
As described in the
following Global ScheduleActions Grid following four
definitions are set.
We need to Double-click on
every action in the first column like 1) Initialize 2) Start Vusers 3) Duration
4) End Vusers, one by one in the above Action grid to launch the respective
dialog Boxes for defining the settings.
Step
9: Initializing of Vusers for getting ready for the load
test run by running the vuser_init action in the script & readying the load
generators.
Double-click "Initialize" in the Action grid to launch
the following "Edit Action" dialog box. For this tutorial, select the
radio button of "Initialize all Vusers simultaneously".
Step 10: Starting of
Vusers
at specified
Intervals: Double-click "Start Vusers"
in the Action grid to launch the following "Edit Action" dialog box.
For this tutorial, feed 8 Vusers in the Start Vusers box, and select the
second option box & feed 2 Vusers every 30 seconds.
Step 11: Specifying a
duration
: Through "Interactive Schedule
Graph" a duration is definedso thatthe Vusers keep on doing
the scheduled action for a specific period thereby enabling us to measure the
continuous load on the server.
During the specified duration, the script
will keep on doing as much iterations as possible irrespective of the number of
iterations defined in the scripts run-time settings.
Click the
"Duration" in the Action grid or click the horizontal line representing
the duration in the graph. The time line gets highlighted and a dot and a
diamond appear at its endpoints. Drag the diamond shaped endpoint to set the
desired time say 00:11:30. This means that Vusers shall run for a duration of 10
minutes.
Step 12: Stopping of Vusers
is done gradually.
Double-click "Stop
Vusers"in the Action grid to launch the following
"Edit Action" dialog box.
For this tutorial, select the
second option box & feed 2 Vusers every 30 seconds.
Step 13: Configuring the
Run-time settings:
to define the behavior of the
Vusers during the test.
Click the "Run -Time Settings" button in
the "Design" tab. Then select the desired script and modify the following
run-time settings if necessary.
a) Run Logic to define the number of
times a user repeats a group of actions.
b) Pacing to define the
time to wait before repeating an action.
c) Log to define the type of
information needed to be captured during the test.
d) Think Time to
define the time a user stops to think between steps.
e) Speed Simulation to
define network connections like modem, DSL or cable.
f) Browser Emulation
to define different browsers.
g) Content Check for automatically
detecting user-defined errors.
Step 14: Enabling think
time
- Select the "General:Think
Time" node. Select "Replay think time" radio button, and select the
"Use random percentage of recorded think time" radio button. For this
tutorial, specify a minimum of 50% and a maximum of 150% as described in the
following picture.
Step 15: Enabling the
logging
option- Select the
"General:Log" node. Select "Enable logging" check Box. In the Log
options, select "Always send messages". Select "Extended log"
radio button, and select "Data returned by server" check box
for this tutorial as described in the following picture.
Click "OK" to close the Run -Time
settings dialog Box.
Step 16: Configuring the
Windows Resources monitor:
to view the
performance of every single tier, server and component of the application during
the load test in real time.
a)
Opening of the Run view - by clicking the
"Run" tab in the Controller window to
display the Windows Resources graph which is one of four default graphs getting
displayed in the graph viewing area as shown in following picture.
Right-click the
"Windows Resources graph" and select
Add Measurements to open the
Windows
Resources dialog box as shown in following picture.
b) Selection of
monitored
server - Click "Add" In the Monitored Server Machines section of the Windows Resources dialog box to open the following "Add
Machine" dialog box.
T
ype "localhost" in the "Name"
field & specify the Name of the Platform say Win 2000 in
the "Platform" field. Click
"OK" to close the "Add
Machine" dialog box.
c)
Activation of the monitor by clicking "OK"
in the
Windows Resources dialog box.
With these steps the design of our Scenario
gets complete & becomes ready for the load testing.
For Detailed Study : Please Refer HP-LoadRunner Help Guide &
Tutorials
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