Web Load Testing Made Easy: Testing with WCAT and WAST for Windows Applications

摘要

Web performance is critical to the business bottom line. Whether it is a portal on your intranet for sharing vital corporate information or an eCommerce site to support your customer base; it is a key resource that must be understood, monitored and controlled. Service delivery is as important, if not more so, than for other mission critical applications. The main difference is that for a portal or eCommerce site, customers become aware of performance problems at the same time that you do. Poor response leads to site abandonment. You lose customers and they may never come back. This paper is presented in two parts. The first part details the general methodology for website capacity planning including the metrics to be measured and evaluated during and after the load test execution. A brief overview of load testing tools is also provided. The second part discusses specific details about the WCAT and WAST tools for evaluating performance of Windows websites. A case study is also presented detailing the use of the tools with some interesting performance findings that may be applicable to your environment.