This paper is about load testing in minor projects, where load testing is usually omitted due to its’ high cost. Such negligence sometimes results in surprisingly too low performance of the application. However, free open-source load testing tools can improve the situation. Usage of such free load testing is recommended even there is nothing said about the performance in the test-plan. In this paper a free open-source load testing tool The Grinder and GrinderAnalyzer utility are taken as examples. A major part of the paper is devoted to the knowledge, required for the work with such tools.

The metrics available for The Grinder are best fit to measure response times in any system with client-server architecture, which use any protocol that is supported by the Java libraries. Server-side performance metrics are unavailable for The Grinder, however they could be get from other tools.

The primary components of The Grinder, Agent and Console, are observed; the principles of their work, as well as general principles of web-applications testing are explained. Advantages and disadvantages comparing to mature commercial tools are listed. The report-building tool, GrinderAnalyzer is also mentioned.

The installation and the trivial workflow are shown. Then, we explain the basic workflow requiring the script editing. An attention is paid to the standard API supplied with The Grinder. Also, the more complex approach, the usage of the third-parties libraries is discussed. And finally, the ability to edit The Grinder itself is presented. For each approach the required technical threshold of the QA is given. Also, the possible fields out of the load testing where The Grinder could be useful are considered.

An early involvement of load testing to the project development process, as well as continuous load testing methodology are proposed.

Author: Ilya Yevlampiev

Test Lead, Exigen Services

Ilya works in IT industry since 2005. In 2008 he came to Kazan department of Exigen Services. As an active participant of Kazan testers’ community, he popularizes free testing automation and load tools among the community folks and colleagues. In his own department Ilya is actively involved as a lector into testing schools intended for the testers’ training.