Topic: Mastering HP LoadRunner through Question Answers

Every professional in the Software Testing & Quality Assurance domain is certainly aware of HP’s LoadRunner.

LoadRunner is a well-known next generation performance verification & validation tool brought by HP. This is a unique tool through which we can simulate situation with hundreds or thousands of artificial users & can impose definite, consistent and repeatable loads on the system thereby stressing it from end-to-end.

LoadRunner is designed to accurately predict the actual performance and behavior of the application, thereby increasing our confidence in the reliability of the new system before it gets actually deployed.

A beginning has been made to bring out a self-learning / Training series wherein the aspirants can Learn & Master LoadRunner through High Quality Question Answers. Having a mastery over these Question Answers on LoadRunner, one can be confident on this vast topic, while facing interviews as well, in any leading MNC.

Few of such Question & Answers are presented below:

In real world scenario, it is not possible to create situation involving say one thousand users using a system simultaneously so as to test the behavior of the system under such stressful conditions. LoadRunner can create such a situation.

LoadRunner artificially simulates several thousand users - which are called Virtual Users. These artificial / digitally created users are simultaneously forced to operate on the same task, thereby loading the system in a way it is expected to be loaded by real human users in actual practice.

With LoadRunner we can simulate situation with hundreds or thousands of artificial users & we can impose definite, consistent and repeatable loads on the system thereby stressing it from end-to-end. This way we can emulate several business processes & production conditions, which a deployed application is going to encounter.

LoadRunner accurately measures, monitors, and analyzes a system’s performance and functionality.

Essential capabilities of an application performance testing tool are that:

1) It must be able to test a system which combines many software applications and hardware platforms.

2) It must be able to determine the suitability of a server for any given application.

3) It must be able to test the server before the necessary client software has been developed.

4) It must be able to emulate an environment where multiple clients interact with a single server application.

5) It must be able to test an application under the load of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of potential users.

Load testing of a complete system can be done manually by building an environment where many users work simultaneously on the system. Each user is made to work on his standalone machine and every individual submits input to the system. However due to complexity of such a system, following drawbacks are there

1) Manual testing methods offer only a partial solution to the load testing.

2) Manual testing is expensive & requires large amounts of manpower & equipment.

3) Manual testing is complicated, especially while coordinating and synchronizing multiple testers.

4) Manual testing involves a high degree of organization, especially to record and analyze results meaningfully.

5)The repeatability of the manual tests is limited.