LoadRunner FAQ

[kalareddy]

Learning LoadRunner

How can I learn to use LoadRunner?

The hardcopy and PDF documentation that is shipped with LoadRunner is fairly good. You can learn the tool and something about load testing by reading the documentation. Mercury does not send documentation to non-customers. Please do not ask the forum members to send you a copy of the PDF.
Mercury Interactive offers courses at their facility in Sunnyvale and other US cities. They also can conduct courses at your site. Mercury has certified training partners that also offer classroom training.
Some community colleges and for-profit training companies offer LoadRunner courses as well.
What do I need to know to do load testing in addition to knowing how to use the LoadRunner tool?
Unlike functional testing you need to know more than just how the application under test functions. You need to know how the components behind the client work and what the performance issues for the components are.
Specifically, you need to know the following knowledge and skills:
Components such as web servers, application servers, database servers, operating systems, networks and network elements such as load balancers. You need not have \"guru\" level knowledge of each of the components but should have operational knowledge and an understanding of the performance issues associated with the components. For example, a load tester should know what multi-way joins, indexes and spin counts are and what affect they have on a database server.
Protocol(s) used between the client and server such as HTTP/HTML, ODBC, SQL*NET, and DCOM.

C. The LoadRunner script language is ANSI C. It helps to know the C language, but the scripts are generated and manipulated by LoadRunner, so there is usually not need to directly edit the code. There is also a icon script view which completely hides the C code.

Communication. Load testing is not a heads down coding exercise. You will work with many parts of an organization to coordinate activities, schedules and resources. Daily interaction with a variety of people requires good oral and written communication skills as well as good people skills. If you prefer to sit in a cube by yourself, you should stay in functional testing or development.

Where can I get help?
Mercury Interactive Customer Support Site. Visit Mercury Interactive\'s customer support site (http://support.mercuryinteractive.com) for support hours, contact information, and other important information about customer support. Use the site to submit support service requests on-line, and to access knowledge base articles, user discussion forums, patches, on-line documentation and the latest product information. This is available to only customers.

Mercury Interactive Web Site. Visit Mercury Interactive at (http://www.mercuryinteractive.com) for information on new products, events, a list of local distributors, and more. This is available to the public.

Mercury Interactive Phone Support. For customers in the US, Canada, and the rest of the Americas, you can get phone support between 6 AM and 5 PM Pacific Time at (877) TEST-HLP or locally at (408) 822-5400. This is available to only customers.

For all others, see the contact list on the web at
http://support.mercuryinteractive.co...O/contacts.jsp
Applications
What protocols does LoadRunner support?
LoadRunner ships with support for the following protocols. Other protocols are available but are not necessarily full supported.

E-Business
FTP
LDAP
Web/Winsocket Dual Protocol
Palm
SOAP
Web (HTTP/HTML)
Wireless
i-mode
VoiceXML
WAP
Streaming
Media Player (MMS)
Real
Mailing Services
Internet Messaging (IMAP)
MS Exchange (MAPI)
POP3
SMTP
Enterprise Java Beans
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
Rmi-Java

Distributed Components
COM/DCOM
Corba-Java
Rmi-Java
Middleware
Jacada
Tuxedo 6
Tuxedo 7
ERP
Baan
Oracle NCA
PeopleSoft - Tuxedo
Siebel - DB2 CLI
Siebel - Oracle
Siebel - MSSQL
SAP
Client/Server
DB2 CLI
Domain Name Resolution (DNS)
Informix
MS SQL Server
ODBC
Oracle (2-Tier)
Sybase CtLib
Sybase Dblib
Windows Sockets
Legacy
Terminal Emulation (RTE)
Custom
C Vuser
Javascript Vuser
Java Vuser
VB Script Vuser
VB Vuser

What can I monitor with LoadRunner?
LoadRunner ships with support for the following components. Other monitors are available but are not necessarily full supported.

Client-side Monitors
End-to-end transaction monitors - Provide end-user response times, hits per second, transactions per second.

§ Hits per Second
§ HTTP Responses per Second
§ Pages Downloaded per Second
§ Throughput
§ Transaction Response Time
§ Transaction per Second (Passed)
§ Transaction per Second (Failed)
§ User-defined Data Point
§ Virtual User Status
§ Web Transaction breakdown Graphs

Server Monitors
NT/UNIX/Linux monitors - Provide hardware, network and operating system performance metrics, such as CPU, memory and network throughput.

§ NT server resources
§ UNIX / Linux server monitor

Load Appliances Performance Monitors

§ Antara.net

Application Deployment Solutions

§ Citrix MetaFrame (available only for LoadRunner)

Network Monitors

§ Network delay monitor - Provides a breakdown of the network segments between client and server, as well as network delays.
§ SNMP monitor - Provides performance data for network devices such as bridges and routers.

Web Server Performance Monitors
Web server monitors - Provide performance data inside the Web servers, such as active connections, hits per second, etc.

§ Apache
§ Microsoft IIS
§ iPlanet (NES)

Web Application Server Performance Monitors
Web application server monitor - Provides performance data inside the Web application server, such as connections per second, active database connections, etc.

§ Allaire ColdFusion
§ ATG Dynamo
§ BEA WebLogic (via JMX)
§ BEA WebLogic (via SNMP)
§ BroadVision
§ IBM WebSphere
§ iPlanet Application Server
§ Microsoft COM+ Monitor
§ Microsoft Active Server Pages
§ Oracle 9iAS HTTP Server
§ SilverStream

Streaming Media Performance Monitors (available only for LoadRunner)
Streaming specific monitors for measuring the end user quality on the client side, and isolate performance bottlenecks on the server-side.

§ Microsoft Windows Media Server
§ Real Networks RealServer

Firewall Server Resource Monitors

§ CheckPoint FireWall-1

Database Server Resource Monitors
Database monitor - Provides performance data inside the database, such as active database connections, etc.

§ SQL Server
§ Oracle
§ DB2
§ Sybase (available only for LoadRunner)

ERP Performance Monitors (available only for LoadRunner)

§ SAP R/3 Monitor

Middleware Performance Monitors

§ Tuxedo - Provides performance data inside a BEA Tuxedo application server, such as current requests in queue.
§ IBM WebSphere MQ (MQSeries) (available only for LoadRunner)

In addition to these monitors, LoadRunner also supports user defined monitors which allows you to easily integrate the results from other measurement tools with LoadRunner data collection.

How many users can I emulate with LoadRunner on a PC?
This greatly depends on the configuration of the PC (number of CPUs, CPU speed, memory and operating system), the protocol(s) used, the size and complexity of the script(s), the frequency of execution (iteration pacing and think times) and the amount of logging.

How much memory is needed per user?
You can get some approximation of the memory needs by looking at the \"LR 7.02 footprints.pdf\" file located on the LoadRunner discussion group at groups.yahoo.com/group/LoadRunner/files.
Product
Can I get a evaluation copy of LoadRunner?
No. Mercury does not ship evaluation copies of LoadRunner. You can contact Mercury or a Mercury reseller to get a demo at your site or via Webex.

What is the current shipping version of LoadRunner?
7.8

What is the difference between LoadRunner and Astra LoadTest?
Astra LoadTest is another load test tool from Mercury Interactive built specifically for testing web applications. Relative to LoadRunner it:
§ Supports only HTTP and HTTPS protocols.
§ Has less functionality.
§ Uses the VBScript scripting language.
§ Has a larger footprint (~ 5 MBytes).
§ Costs less.
§ Is easier to learn.

In that LoadRunner supports web applications plus much more, it is the preferred tool for load testing web applications. The exception is if the load testers are non-technical (bad idea) or the load test project\'s budget is too limited to afford LoadRunner.

[anshult]

Hi
Thanks for the valuable information. I started working on LoadRunner since last one month and I have lots of quries regarding "Run Time Settings".Do you have any pdf doc regarding "Run Time Setting" and "Recording option" so that I can go through them and understand them.

Thanks
Anshul

[papayamilkshake]

Originally Posted by anshult

Hi
Thanks for the valuable information. I started working on LoadRunner since last one month and I have lots of quries regarding "Run Time Settings".Do you have any pdf doc regarding "Run Time Setting" and "Recording option" so that I can go through them and understand them.

Thanks
Anshul

It's in the Vugen User Guide that comes along with every installation of LoadRunner.

Regards
papayamilkshake