Selected User Forum Posts

Beginning in mid-2010 we have directed all technical support questions to the eValid User Forum. We have learned that when one user has an issue, all users can profit from the answer.

Here is an additional selection of some of the posts that we think would be of general interest.

• Encountered Script Error... -- More about script errors.
• WPF Application -- Discusses how eValid operates relative to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) type objects.
• The Timer and The DOM Synchronization Commands -- How the internal peformance time interacts with DOM synchronizations.
• The Agile Method Idea -- How does eVaild fit into the "Agile Manifesto" as a testing suite.
• Unique Test Number -- How to use the eVaild $RunCount reserved variable in your tests.

Webinar: AJAX Performance/Load Testing

Test Complex AJAX Applications Quickly
Run 1,000's of Browser Users (BU's) Easily
Use Realistic Loads To Pinpoint Server-Stack Problems

Wednesday, 8 December 2010
2:00 PM Eastern Time / 11:00 AM Pacific Time

QA/Testing/Tuning/Performance groups need to qualify performance of complex AJAX web applications -- within strict budget and time constraints -- to make sure their server-stack setups can meet the need.

The traditional methods of ramping up load, based on using HTTP/S simulations or "VUs", don't always work when asynchronous AJAX applications are involved. VU's don't do AJAX very well.

eValid server loading methods offer both quick-to-create realistic and fully synchronized AJAX functional tests, and can lift those tests into performance/loading scenarios that can involve 100's or 1,000's or 10,000's of Browser Users ("BUs") per machine.

In this webinar you'll learn: how special eValid commands overcome problems with variable-time playback dependency; how to create a full-reality AJAX test quickly; how to adjust it to be totally self-synchronizing under stressed conditions; how to incorporate it in an eValid load test scenario; how to launch 100's or 1,000's or 10,000's of Browser User (BU) instances; and, how to analyze consolidated performance summary files to identify server-stack bottlenecks.

This unique approach demonstrates how eValid becomes a genuine force multiplier in your web application performance testing efforts.

Webinar Topic Summary:

• eValid Architecture and Structure: How eValid functional and performance tests work.
• Functional Testing: How to make reliable recordings of AJAX applications.
• Making AJAX Tests Safe: How to augment test scripts for complete AJAX synchronization.
• Creating Realistic LoadTest Scenarios: How to use the LoadTest scenario editor to create realistic LoadTest control scripts.
• Running Heavy LoadTests: How to launch single and multiple-instance runs using "compute cloud" resources.
• Finding Bottlenecks: How to read the LoadTest and other raw data to help spot server-stack problems.

You are cordially invited to attend this free Webinar.

REGISTER NOW!

Illustration of eValid Structural Commands

From time to time users ask us to provide more examples of how to use the special eValid structural testing commands. These commands provide a way to extract, save, read, and insert values into the DOM of a page.

You would typically use these kinds of eValid commands to convert a script that you have recorded from life (using the eValid recording engine) into one that is immune to changes in the content, or even in the structure, of the page you are testing. This technique is the antidote to the "brittle test" issue -- the complaint made about the record/play method that the recorded scripts break too easily.

Almost every eValid "from-life" recorded script command has a structural equivalent that can be derived easily using the command lexicon and the details of the page that you find from the eValid PageMap command.

It's even possible to use the structural commands to manipulate key variables from within a page. The Value Setting Loop example explains one way to use these special commands to extract a session id from a page and then insert that same session id into the query-string section of a page. This kind of scripting method applies to any number of values that you want to save locally and then communicate back into your playback script. That's a powerful feature worth taking advantage of.

User Forum Posts

Beginning in mid-2010 we have directed all technical support questions to the eValid User Forum. We have learned that when one user has an issue, all users can profit from the answer.

Here is an additional selection of some of the posts that we think would be of general interest.

• Why does a large scan -- about 2400 pages -- take so long? -- Some gruond rules about site analysis.
• Does eValid Use HTTP Traffic In Simulating User Load? -- Browser driven traffic isn't the same as basic HTTP traffic.
• What does "Script Error" mean in the EventLog? -- The meaning of the Script Error message in the eValid Event Log.
• How does eValid approach the issue of testing web services? -- Drive web services from an HTML testbed and drive the testbed from eValid.
• Running Monitors On An AJAX Application -- Recommendations on how to provision a script for monitoring an AJAX application.
• The New Microsoft Coded UI Test System -- Some comments about Microsoft's latest software development environment.
• Automatically Snap A Screenshot -- A simple command sequence solves a common problem.
• Problem in pop-up box recording -- A detailed explanation of how to handle recording and processing a pop-up box.

Please Contact Us if you have questions about any of these topics.

eValid Used at Sacramento State

We're pleased to pass on the news that the eValid web testing system is being used as an example testing suite at California State University at Sacramento in a course taught by Prof. Ahmen Salem on Software Verification and Validation.

Prof. Salem's students are downloading and using eValid in their laboratory work for the CSc 131 and CSc 234 courses, which involve both graduate and undergraduate students, throughout the Fall 2010 semester. Their work with eValid involves both functional testing of selected AJAX applications and generating server loads with multiple eValid instances.

Synchronizing Multiple eValid Instances

In many of our fixed-price PerformanceTest Service Projects a common requirement is to provide a sharp increment in the total number of BUs -- a kind of "step function" for the server stack that acts to "ring out" problems the same way an step function signal does for an electronic circuit.

eValid provides multiple techniques to do this, all of based on the use of the internal synchronization/logic commands such as SyncOnText. When (for example) 100's or 1,000's of eValid BUs are all running in parallel and they are all waiting for a particular DOM element to take on a particular value, the total "width" of the step function measures out to about 1-2 seconds, even when the BUs are located on separate machines.

The real world results we get doing this kind of step function are very interesting because a near-simultaneous burst of new activity can often overload servers, load-balancers, database back-end machine, etc. A lot of performance and diagnostic data in a very short time.

Recent and Upcoming Conferences & Technical Community Events

Here are links to some technical meetings that may be of interest to WQN readers:

• Special Issue on Advances in Software Testing, International Journal of Systems Assurance Engineering and Management
• ISCE 2011: 4th India Software Engineering Conference, 23-27 February 2011, Thiruvananthapuram, India.
• 7th Workshop on Model-Based Testing 2-3 April 2011, Saarbruken, Germany, EU
• 8th International Conference on Information Technology New Generations: ITNG 2011 - Software Testing, 11-13 April 2011, Las Vegas, Nevada,USA

Community events like these deserve very careful consideration!