DevOps; a well known term from last couple of year. DevOps is a methodology to set-up a quick and reliable software development process. But, as a performance tester where we can see the performance testing phase in DevOps? Understand by watching the referred video. An informative video on DevOps and Performance Testing:👇
Dynamic Pacing
To achieve the desired TPS (transaction per second), it is required that the overall response time which includes the response time of all the transactions under 1 iteration, pacing and think time; must be constant.
Since transaction response time is not in your hand and it can be deviated by X%, so in order to achieve desired TPS, how to make overall response time constant.
The answer is Pacing.
By making pacing dynamic you can achieve desired TPS. How? Refer to the below article.👇
👉Article Link
Since transaction response time is not in your hand and it can be deviated by X%, so in order to achieve desired TPS, how to make overall response time constant.
The answer is Pacing.
By making pacing dynamic you can achieve desired TPS. How? Refer to the below article.👇
👉Article Link
Why Page Load Time is not correct metric?
Nowadays, one new requirement is being added in the NFR by the client that a page must be loaded in X seconds in the browser. I also get many queries regarding PageLoad Time testing.
Do you think such a requirement should be considered under core performance testing?
The answer is given in this video. Watch this informative Video published by New Relic. 👇
👉Video Link
Do you think such a requirement should be considered under core performance testing?
The answer is given in this video. Watch this informative Video published by New Relic. 👇
👉Video Link
How to become a good performance engineering?
Stijn Schepers has shared an article which stressed over to become a good performance engineering. The simple 17 key points help to improve performance engineering skill. Read it and get the benefit.
LinkedIn Article Link
Additional Details: Performance engineering aims to design the application by keeping the performance metrics in mind and also to discover potential issues early in the development cycle.
LinkedIn Article Link
Additional Details: Performance engineering aims to design the application by keeping the performance metrics in mind and also to discover potential issues early in the development cycle.
NFR Basics
A good article which covers the non-functional requirement for Performance Testing of an application. Stephen Jenkin described the NFR basics very well in this post. Read the article:👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
MySQL performance issue
This article is especially for Performance Engineers who are involved in the Performance Bottleneck findings and tuning.
A detailed approach has been shown to identify the DB performance issue (Blocking Transactions, Blocking Queries etc.).👇
👉Article Link
A detailed approach has been shown to identify the DB performance issue (Blocking Transactions, Blocking Queries etc.).👇
👉Article Link
Current scenario of Performance Testing world
A good article which covers the current scenario of Performance Testing world along with a brief comparison of the Performance Testing tool, published by Alexander Podelko.👇
High CPU Utilization vs High CPU Saturation
Performance Bottleneck - High CPU Utilization vs High CPU Saturation - By Akshay Deshpande.👇
DB performance issue
This article is especially for Performance Engineers who are involved in the Performance Bottleneck findings and tuning.
A detailed approach has been shown to identify the DB performance issue (Blocking Transactions, Blocking Queries etc.).👇
👉Article Link
A detailed approach has been shown to identify the DB performance issue (Blocking Transactions, Blocking Queries etc.).👇
👉Article Link
DynaTrace Features - Case Study
How fast a performance issue can be resolved using Dynatrace. Interesting case study.👇
NetFlix Case Study
Understand performance root cause analysis of a cloud-based application. NetFlix case study detailed description:👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Some Hidden Performance Metrices
Check-out some basics but hidden performance metrics. I like this small but informative article shared by Blazemeter. 👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Approach of performance testing in DevOps methodology
Many performance testers are searching for a good article which can explain the approach of performance testing in DevOps methodology. Stijin Schepers wrote a very simple and understandable article on the same. Read this post and grab the knowledge of the trendy topic as a treasure of the week.👇
Gathering Performance Requirements
NFR Gathering and Workload Modelling are very basic phases of PTLC. They seem simple when many of us face ground level challenges to complete these phases successfully. A detailed article on "Gathering Performance Requirements" is written by Manish and Rajeshwari; is worth to read out:👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Simulate Traffic vs Real-World Traffic
Understand the difference between Simulate Traffic and Real-World Traffic in Performance Testing term:👇
DevOps and Performance Testing
A detailed blog post on DevOps and Performance Testing along with PTLC phases explanation. Read out the full article and get the knowledge:👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Thread Dump Analysis Pattern - Leprechaun Trap
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete, Atherosclerosis, Treadmill, Traffic Jam, All Roads Lead to Rome, Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), Stock Ticker, Additives and Several Scavengers Pattern. Today, you will see how Finalize Thread always searching for an object having finalize() method and a bad implementation of Finalize() method impacts the performance of the system. Such a pattern is named as Leprechaun Trap Pattern because all the finalize thread search for Finalize() just like Leprechaun searches of Gold. A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this thread pattern along with the example. Refer the link. 👇
Risk Assessment
Last Wednesday, I have shared an informative article link on Risk Assessment in Performance Testing. Moving ahead today I am sharing anther knowledgeful article link which will help to understand what is the criteria of selecting load test scenarios? Scenario selection is an important phase in the Performance Testing Life Cycle comes under a Performance Test Plan. In this phase, you can narrow down the scope of performance testing by assessing the requirement. Get more information in this article👇
Tinder Performance Tuning Case Study
Microservice architecture, or simply microservices, is a distinctive method of developing software systems that try to focus on building single-function modules with well-defined interfaces and operations. Today's thunder is related to Tinder.
Actually, do you know tinder use microservice architecture to run the application smoothly? Today, you can see how tinder engineers tune the application with the help of Grafana monitoring tool. A case study of Tinder performance improvement is the topic in today's tip. Refer to the article to get full details: 👇
👉 Article Link
Actually, do you know tinder use microservice architecture to run the application smoothly? Today, you can see how tinder engineers tune the application with the help of Grafana monitoring tool. A case study of Tinder performance improvement is the topic in today's tip. Refer to the article to get full details: 👇
👉 Article Link
Risk Assessment in Performance Testing
Have you ever heard about Risk Assessment in Performance Testing? Risk assessment is an important phase in the Performance Testing Life Cycle in which you can narrow down the scope of performance testing by assessing the actual risk and focus on the components which really require performance testing. What are all the other things in Risk Assessment? Whose accountability to conduct the risk assessment in a project? Get all the information in this article👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Web-service vs Micro-service
Simple but difficult to answer an interview question "What is the difference between Web-service and Micro-service?". Refer the article link to get the answer:👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Thread Dump Analysis - Several Scavengers
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete, Atherosclerosis, Treadmill, Traffic Jam, All Roads Lead to Rome, Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), Stock Ticker and Additives Pattern. Today, you will see how too many GC thread may also impact the performance. The GC thread count also depends upon the type of GC used in the system. Such a pattern is named as Several Scavengers Pattern because too many cleaners do not provide benefit to clean a garbage-free area. A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this thread pattern along with the example. Refer the link. 👇
Network Emulation
One of the factor to impact the responsiveness of the website is 'Network'. We can not ignore the network related issues which could add some extra delay in the response.
Graham Perry has written an article on the Network Emulation which is worth to read. Refer to the link👇
Basic of Non-Functional Requirement
Last week as a treasure I have shared an article's link which described how does a proper workload modelling improve the performance test result.
Today, I will share another treasure's link which describes the basic of Non-Functional Requirement. What are all the questions should be asked from the client during the NFR gathering phase; is well described by Ashutosh in his blog. Refer to the article and grab the basic knowledge.👇
👉Article Link
Today, I will share another treasure's link which describes the basic of Non-Functional Requirement. What are all the questions should be asked from the client during the NFR gathering phase; is well described by Ashutosh in his blog. Refer to the article and grab the basic knowledge.👇
👉Article Link
Performance Monitoring
Performance Testing is upgrading day-by-day as Performance Engineering where APM tools play a vital role. John Rakowski has written a future predictive article on Performance Monitoring. Refer the article link below:👇
👉Article Link
👉Article Link
Thread Dump Analysis - Additives
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete, Atherosclerosis, Treadmill, Traffic Jam, All Roads Lead to Rome, Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and Stock Ticker Pattern. Today, you will see if additional threads start to go into a particular state, then those threads and their stack traces have to be studied in detail because thread leak may occur. Such a pattern is named as Additives Pattern. A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this thread pattern along with the example. Refer the link. 👇
Microservice performance testing under DevOps methodology
Microservice architecture, or simply microservices, is a distinctive method of developing software systems that try to focus on building single-function modules with well-defined interfaces and operations. The trend has grown popular in recent years as Enterprises look to become more Agile and move towards a DevOps and continuous testing.
Neotys has published an informative article on Microservice performance testing under DevOps methodology along with Microservice architecture. Refer to the article to get full details: 👇
CPU Bottleneck Identification
The high CPU usage is one of the most common bottlenecks identified during performance testing. As a performance tester, when some spikes or plateau are observed in the CPU utilization graph during user steady state then we raise a ticket for further investigation. But when you are leading a performance engineering task then it is your responsibility to identify the exact root cause. So, from where you will start your investigation?
This question is answered in today's article published on fastThread's blog. A step by step approach has been given in the article which can help you to grow your knowledge about CPU bottleneck identification. Refer to the link👇
Workload Modelling Steps
Workload modelling is an art where a performance tester designs a scenario to achieve the desired performance metric and check the performance of the application. In one of my post (under PTLC topic), I described how to prepare the workload model with the help of available figures.
Today, I will share one of the articles written by JM which explains what are the steps involved to get a correct workload model? Apart from these steps, I would also like to give stress over the correct calculation of metrics which is the soul of scenario creation. A small miscalculation may lead the test result in the wrong direction. Soon, I will write a blog on the accurate calculation of workload.
Back to the topic, today, you can refer to JM's article to get the knowledge on Workload Modelling steps.👇
Java Performance Issues and Resolutions
Nowadays, the maximum part of Performance tuning is falling under the Performance Engineer bucket. Hence he must have the knowledge of system architecture and experience to identify the bottleneck and resolve them. Java Performance issues are very common during performance testing as well as in production. Vimalaharan Paskarasundaram; in his article; described:
- What are the common Java performance issues?
- What are the reasons behind them?
- How to resolve them
This article is a good source of information, specially for those who are involved in Performance Engineering or about to learn it. Refer the article link below:👇
DynaTrace - PurePath
Dynatrace a famous name in the APM tool world. Dynatrace has many ultimate features like user experience, real-time business transaction monitoring, host and system monitoring, PurePath technology etc.
One of its features, PurePath provides a complete multi-dimensional trace of every transaction in a monitored application, giving comprehensive visibility across mobile apps, web apps, web browsers, web servers, Java, .NET, Node.js, PHP, databases, middleware and mainframe apps.
What is PurePath? Refer to the link to understand PurePath Power:👇
Thread Dump Analysis - Stock Ticker
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete, Atherosclerosis, Treadmill, Traffic Jam, All Roads Lead to Rome and Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) Pattern. Today, you will see how to identify the bottleneck using Thread count. If thread count increased then it is a clear indication that some issues are there. To track the count of the thread named Stock Ticker Pattern. A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this thread pattern along with the example. Refer the link. 👇
Performance Testing to Performance Engineering
What are the steps which lead you from Performance Testing to Performance Engineering?
Todd DeCapua has described the approach in detail in his article. Read the article if you are ready to switch: 👇
👉 Article Link
Todd DeCapua has described the approach in detail in his article. Read the article if you are ready to switch: 👇
👉 Article Link
LoadRunner - Quick Overview
Today's post is specially for LoadRunner beginner. Micro Focus has published a white paper in which LoadRunner basics are documented. This is a short but informative white paper.
This white paper will also help to them who want to understand how does LoadRunner work? And how different steps of LoadRunner fit into PTLC (Performance Testing Life Cycle). Refer to the link👇
👉White Paper Link
This white paper will also help to them who want to understand how does LoadRunner work? And how different steps of LoadRunner fit into PTLC (Performance Testing Life Cycle). Refer to the link👇
👉White Paper Link
Best APM tool (Gartner Report)
The next level of performance testing is Performance Engineering. In 2018, it has been observed that performance tester became more diverted in performance engineering assignment and looking for a job where they can learn engineering with some practical project work.
APM tools like DynaTrace, AppDynamics etc. are also growing and extending their features by adding Artificial Intelligence to cover the deep monitoring and analysis as well as predict the performance of the application. As a newcomer in the performance engineering field, a person may ask which APM tool he/she can learn?
Gartner has published a detailed comparison report on the top level APM tool along with Magic Quadrant (which is given below).
To read out the full report you need to visit DynaTrace official page and submit your details. Refer the link to get this informative report which may help you to choose the right APM for your career growth. Good Luck!
👉Article Link
MySQL tuning - Reduce CPU Utilization
Nowadays, the maximum part of Performance tuning is falling under the Performance Engineer bucket. Hence he must have the knowledge of system architecture and experience to identify the bottleneck and resolve them.
Today, I found an article about MySQL tuning in which author Marcelo Altmann explained how CPU utilization can be reduced on MySQL. Refer the article link below:👇
True causes of performance bottlenecks
Performance Testing is used to find out the bugs which degrade the performance of the application. But did we ever try to find out the exact reason for these bugs? If we know the causes at the beginning of the SDLC then performance issues can be mitigated up to some extent. And, this behaviour can lead you to become a Performance Engineer.
I found an ultimate article in which the writer (JM) has uncovered the causes of performance bottlenecks. Read the article to know what are they?👇
Performance Testing Approach
Rebecca Clinard, a Solution Consultant at New Relic has published a very basic and informative article on LinkedIn which describes the approach of performance testing starting from beginning till bug finding. Since she belongs to New Relic so she has given the reference of the same tool.
But the good part is that you can read this article considering the suggested approach is generic and implement with any of the APM tools. If you use New Relic then that will be well and good! Read the article and grab the knowledge. Refer to the link👇
Thread Dump Analysis - RSI
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete, Atherosclerosis, Treadmill, Traffic Jam and All Roads Lead to Rome Pattern. Today, you will see the situation where multiple threads are waiting to lock the repetitive stack trace which leads thread starvation. This pattern emphasises on proper arrangement of stack trace which can avoid the repetitive locking behaviour. This type of thread pattern is named as Repetitive Starin Injury (RSI). A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this thread pattern along with the example. Refer the link. 👇
Run Vuser as Thread vs Process
A common question asks in the interview "What is the difference between Run Vuser as a Thread and Run Vuser as a Process?"
Most of us say Process occupies more memory than Thread. Hence we can execute more Vusers on an LG using Run Vuser as a Thread mode.
This is the correct answer. But I did more research on it and got some additional things which I described in this post. Hope this post will become "Clear Your Funda" for you. Refer the link👇
Memory Leakage - Reasons
Memory leakage; a very common topic in the performance testing but an important one. By the way, an endurance test is conducted to identify memory leakage in the application which is a longer duration test.
From a performance tester perspective, it is not important to find out why memory leakage happens, but from a performance engineering perspective, it is required to conduct the root cause analysis. What is memory leakage and why it occurs? explained in a very short video. Refer the link:
Mobile Performance Testing (Beginners)
Mobile performance testing demand has been increased due to the high usage of mobile devices, it leads the requirement of the mobile device as well as mobile application performance testing.
Neotys has published an article which will help mobile performance tester to understand the basics. This could be a starting point for a mobile performance tester beginners. Read the article and grab the knowledge:
Common Mistake during Test Execution & Monitoring
High-Level knowledge of performance testing can be gathered by the reading the blogs, watching the videos and listening to the audios. But practice is required so that you can learn with the issue you face, you can experience the debugging challenges and many more things.
During practice or working in the live project, many mistakes occurred which help you to understand what wrong you did and how to overcome the situation and what could be the step so that same mistake will not be committed next time? Another way is to learn from others' experience. In such a case, if someone gives an advanced knowledge then it can prevent you to make the same mistakes during the test cycle.
RadhaKrishna has shared some common mistakes committed during test execution and monitoring. In his article, he also suggested what are the things to keep in the mind so that mistakes can be avoided. Read this informative article: 👇
APM Tools - Features & Price Comparison
There are many APM tools available in the market and it is difficult to choose them without any comparison. Stackify, which is also an APM tool, has published an article and compared the features and price of various APM tools. Let's have a look at this article to know the comparison:
Thread Dump Analysis - All Roads Lead To Rome
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete Pattern, Atherosclerosis Pattern, Treadmill Pattern and Traffic Jam Pattern. Today, you will see the situation where all the threads are in Runnable state and waiting for the same method which leads out of memory situation. This type of thread pattern is named as All Roads Lead To Rome. A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this thread pattern.
Java Performance Tuning Tips
Performance Engineering is an art of identifying the bottlenecks and optimize the performance of the system or application to make it fast and scalable. Performance Engineering requires theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge, experience and out of box thinking. In the past, people did not care if the website is loaded in more than a minute, but in the current era if the response time of a page is more than 10 seconds then 50% people either refresh the window or close the session which directly impacts the revenue of the company.
Today, I found a very informative video in which Jack Shirazi gave lots of Performance Optimization tips related to Java, although the video's subject line is '10,000 Java Performance tips over 15 years - what did I learn? by Jack Shirazi'. For a performance engineer, this video would be like an ocean of knowledge. Refer to the link and watch the video.
Pros and cons of Open-source Tools
In past some years, it has been seen that open-source tools' demand is continuously increasing and they are competing to the paid or licensed tools. Not only in performance testing area, but in some other domain also, the same trend has been followed.
Along with the major advantage of saving money with the open-source tool, there are certain disadvantages are also associated. Bob Reselman has written a justified article on open-source tools and also compared licensed tools over the legging factors of freeware tools. Read the article and get today's wonder!
Open-source APM Tool list
Many open-source tools are available for Performance Testing like Apache JMeter, Gatling etc. Following the same trend, you can also get some open-source APM tools which do not need any single penny other than the hardware cost.
Henn Idan has written an article in which he has listed out some open-source APM tools specially for Java. This article is useful because you can get the information about freeware APM tool as well as you can compare their features to use them in your project. Refer to the below link to read the post:
Architectural understanding for Performance Engineering
Performance Engineering is growing day by day. Many IT companies whether they are service-based or product based, are demanding for the resource who has knowledge of both performance testing as well as performance engineering. The practical knowledge of Performance Engineering is a must, but a strong building of Performance Engineering can be created over a solid base of theoretical knowledge. By the way, to learn the performance engineering 3 features are required:
1. Architectural understanding
2. Experience, to find the bottleneck
3. Deep knowledge, to resolve the issue by suggesting an optimized way.
Starting the first step, RadhaKrishna has shared an informative article which can help to understand the basic architecture of 3 tier application along with information like how to estimate workload modelling, how to scale the environment etc.? So, read the article and step-up for the performance engineering world.
Courses and Training (PT and APM tools)
To spread the knowledge of the product, many companies conduct the training and also provide the courses. Today, I have listed out some of the courses and training which provide knowledge either on related tools or technologies. You can simply register for the course and grab the knowledge. Some of the courses may be paid.
1. Dynatrace: Course Link
2. AppDynamics: Course Link
3. Neotys: Training & Certification Link
4. New Relic: Learning Portal Link
5. Apache JMeter (Training provided by Blazemeter): Course Link
6. Gartner: Online Training Link
7. Grafana: Training Link
Thread Dump Analysis - Traffic Jam Pattern
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
In some previous posts, I have shared articles which described Athlete Pattern, Atherosclerosis Pattern and Treadmill Pattern. Today, you will see the situation where threads are totally blocked due to unavailability of the resources locked by some other threads. Such a situation leads to a system crash. This type of thread pattern is named as Traffic Jam Thread Pattern. A simple and descriptive article published in the fastThread blog on this horrible thread pattern.
Mobile Device Performance Testing
Due to high usage of the internet and ease of doing the e-operations like transferring the money, ordering the food, playing the internet game, listening to the songs etc. all these daily needs are increasing the demand of the mobile. Now, a single mobile can do multiple things, not only on the internet but offline also like capturing the high definition images, video and audio recordings, storing and managing the contacts etc.
Just like a server now it is mandatory to do a performance check of the mobile device so that it can perform well with the provided resources (hardware) and give a better user experience. But mobile device testing is not as similar to the server or application performance testing.
Neotys has published an informative white-paper on Mobile device performance testing and challenges. If you are involved in such kind of performance testing then this white paper will be a treasure for you. Refer to the white-paper link below:
Tips on Performance Engineering
Following the 2019 trend in the performance testing world, skill upgrade must be required for a native performance tester. When we read any advanced level topic related to performance testing then two important terms always come across. Now, the question here is how to implement these two terms in the project so that a performance tester can switch from a native process to the advance approach?
An article is published by JM in focusaps which bridge the gaps in performance engineering. In simple words, he gives the tips on performance engineering in DevOps term. Read the article and grab the knowledge on how small things make big differences. Also, update your skills as per market demand:
Article Link
Reasons for High CPU Usage
High CPU is one of the common bottlenecks found during performance testing. High utilization of CPU may occur in any type of performance test. Here, I am not referring to the low or high timely CPU spikes which come rarely. I am pointing to the high CPU utilization which lasts till the test ends or sometimes even after the test completion. There could be multiple reasons which make such type of situation.
I found an informative article which describes the possible and most common causes of high CPU utilization. I would suggest to save these causes in your memory because in future when you try to resolve the bottleneck related to high CPU utilization then this learning could be a key treasure for you.
Performance Engineering with DevOps Methodology
Performance Engineering is growing day by day. IT companies whether they are service-based or product based, are demanding for the resource who has knowledge of both performance testing as well as performance engineering. As we know that performance testing is based on the black box concept where performance engineering forces us to understand the architecture of the application and deep-dive into backend functionality of the system. So, what could be your strategy to evolve performance engineering in your project with DevOps methodology. Understand by this post (a high level summarized article):
JMeter - Learning Material
JMeter is an open-source tool and nowadays it is in high demand. Day-by-day new plug-ins extend the features of JMeter and make it a stronger competitor for the existing licensed tool. To make the learning of JMeter more simple and free, there are many videos created by Raghav Pal which are embedded in the below page:
Many performance testers are more interested in reading rather than watching the videos so they can refer below link where step-by-step topics cover full JMeter learning along with challenges, solutions and some small tips:
Still, you have doubt then you can join the WhatsApp group and clear your doubts:
Dynatrace Official Video for beginners
Dynatrace, an APM tool who provides fabulous support to identify the performance bottleneck, AI-powered analytics, full-stack discovery, pure-path coverage with code-level analysis and many more monitoring and profiling features. Many times I saw in the group chat, people were searching for Dynatrace training which is hard to get (at least nowadays) and then their search is ended with zero.
To help such a people, Dynatrace has published an official video for the beginners who want to start their career in performance engineering field with Dynatrace. This video is also helpful for those who are willing to learn the APM tool and add a new skill in their resume. But yes; practical knowledge is must. So let's start your journey with Dynatrace official video which describes the basics concept and will help to grab knowledge of this wonderful tool.
Thread Dump Analysis - Treadmill Pattern
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required.
Sometime back, I have shared articles which described Athlete Thread Pattern in which thread is in Runnable state and does not consume CPU. Today, you will see the opposite case of Athlete Thread Pattern that is when the thread is in continuously Runnable state and consumes high CPU. Such type of thread pattern is named as Treadmill Thread Pattern. A simple and descriptive article published in fastThread blog. Happy to share with you to enhance your knowledge repository.ance of AI.
Related Articles:
Why AIOps is required in APM?
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tools are approaching to next advance level day-by-day. AppDymanics, Dynatrace, New Relic are the big placeholders in this list. Sometime back I have shared an article link in which the author described why application monitoring is as important as application performance testing. Now, today, I am sharing an article link which is published by AppDymanics, described not only application monitoring is enough but it should be enabled with AIOps. What is AIOps and why it is required with the Application Performance Monitoring Tool? Read the article and grab the knowledge:
If you are a performance engineer or on the path to become a successful performance engineer then this article would be helpful for you to understand the import.
2019 Performance Testing Trend - I
I have shared many article links in the past which provide information about the current trends in Performance Testing world. Such articles give an indication of the change in native performance testing process and start a new era where DevOps, AIOps, APM tools will expand their territories and dethroned the existing approach by the sword of more realistic and advanced featured tools and methodologies.
Bob Reselman has published the first part of his article at Neotys blog "2019 Performance Testing Trend" which has some interesting facts about the future of performance testing. Read the article and update your skills as per market demand:
Types of Memory Leakage, Reasons and Resolutions
Memory leakage is one of the common bottlenecks found during performance testing. Ideally, endurance (also known as soak) test is conducted to identify the memory leakage in the application. But sometimes the system fails due to memory issues even in the load test. In such a situation, there could be multiple reasons which make the servers out of memory.
Today, I found a good document in which most common out of memory error types are listed out along with reasons and generic solutions. I would suggest to download and save this PDF because in future when you try to resolve the bottleneck related to memory issue then this document could be a key treasure for you.
Thread Dump Analysis - Atherosclerosis Pattern
Sometime back, I have shared an article on Thread Dump Analysis Athlete Pattern posted at the fastThread blog. That article described how to identify which runnable threads really consume CPU. Following the same topic i.e. Thread Dump Analysis Pattern, today I am going to share another pattern i.e. atherosclerosis. In this article, you will come to know how to identify the BLOCKED thread.
If you are learning performance engineering or involved in it then such type of small tips will help you to enhance your knowledge. The fastThread blog has many informative articles, so read them and grab the knowledge of Performance Engineering.
Article Link
If you are learning performance engineering or involved in it then such type of small tips will help you to enhance your knowledge. The fastThread blog has many informative articles, so read them and grab the knowledge of Performance Engineering.
Article Link
JMeter Runtime Result in Non-GUI mode
JMeter is an open-source tool and nowadays it is in high demand. Day-by-day new plug-ins extend the features of JMeter and make it a stronger competitor for the existing licensed tool. Previously we have seen that the addition of HTML report makes the result analysis detailed and colourful. Now this time Taurus (an open source tool) is enhancing JMeter feature especially when the test is running in Non-GUI mode. What is that feature? Read the full detail in this LinkedIn post shared by Mohd Nazim Siddhique:
Type of Performance Test Defect
During Performance Testing, many defects are found which can be termed as bottlenecks. Performance Testing defects are usually different from the functional testing defects because they have moreover occurred at the network or server side. As far as I am confident most of the clients do not have proper defect management for performance testing bottlenecks that lead extra time, effort and money when the bottleneck re-appeared in future releases.
Leave this topic here only because today, I am sharing an article written by Naveen Kumar describing the category of Performance Testing Defects. This article will help you to understand the category and severity of the PT bottlenecks. Refer to the link and get the knowledge:
Thread Dump Analysis - Athlete Pattern
Thread Dump is a snapshot of the status of all the threads at a particular time. Thread dumps are vital artefacts to diagnose CPU spikes, deadlocks, poor response times, memory problems, unresponsive applications, and other system problems. Thread Dump helps to find out what every thread in the JVM is doing at a particular point in time. A common phenomenon is once a high CPU usage is observed then thread dump analysis is required. In the analysis, threads are categorised on the basis of their states. But what happens when a thread is in Runnable state and does not consume any CPU? Have you heard about such type of thread?
In today's funda, we will learn about Athlete Thread Pattern. A simple and descriptive article published in fastThread blog. Happy to share with you to enhance your knowledge repository.
How to reduce Page Load time?
Apart from server performance monitoring and optimization, nowadays clients also want to know how will the application or website perform at the browser level when it goes live i.e. how would be the end user experience on their website. In today's article, the author mentioned the steps to reduce the server response time first byte. Here, he is not talking about the server response time but he is pointing to Page Load Time at browser end. He described some good points to reduce the page loading time in the browser and also given detailed information on 9 different page load speed checking tools which help to identify the client-side issues. These issues may restrict the application to load quickly in the browser and fade-up the end users. The mentioned tools in the article also elaborate on why and which components are the culprit for the slowness of page-loading.
This article could be helpful if you are involved in Performance Engineering work. Because performance improvement is not a task to just improve the performance at the server level, but it is an overall performance optimization which is applied on all three levels i.e. client, server and network.
Server Side Performance Monitoring - Issues, Solutions and Tools
Thread Dump Analysis, Heap Dump Analysis and GC Analysis play an important role during performance bottleneck root cause identification. A sudden spike in CPU, high memory utilization, memory leakage etc. many are causes which need a quick analysis and resolution. Are there any tricks which can help for rapid resolution of these issues?
Ram Lakshmanan has presented a slide show in one of the events in which he explained the server side performance issues and tips to solve those issues by choosing the correct tool. Refer the link to watch the slide show and learn the tips:
Future of Performance Monitoring
In the current world, Performance Monitoring as important as Performance Testing. Many big names like DynaTrace, AppDynamics are continuously working to improve the monitoring features in the APM tool. Even they succeed to make strong tools which are not only monitoring the performance of the system but providing the root cause analysis for the bottleneck (these are very basic features, but they are doing more than these).
AppDynamics team has introduced AIOps concept in the tool and improved the AppDynamics features and add a feather in the cap. A video has been twitted by AppDynamics on 'Future of Performance Monitoring'. I would suggest to stream the video and understand where the performance testing world is going.
Details on AIOps
In today's world, trends are changing so rapidly and if we want to go with trend then we need to adopt the new environment and changes and keep ourself up to date. Sometime back I have shared some articles on AIOps, continue with the same, today I am sharing another informative article on what is AIOps and why it is required to understand (especially in performance monitoring field). AppDynamics team use the AIOps concept and enhance the tool with new AIOps features day-by-day.
Gartner has published this article to spread the knowledge of AIOps. Read it and grab the new era trend.
Apache Kafka, Monitoring and Performance Optimization
I got some requests to brief on Kafka which is highly in demand nowadays. Actually, Kafka is an Apache product which is a freeware (open-source) and used for building real-time data pipelines and streaming app like NetFlix. Kafka is used by some big name like LikedIn, Yahoo, Twitter, Uber etc. You can click here to get the list of companies who use Kafka.
I am thankful to RadhaKrishna Prasad who has written a descriptive article on Kafka from Performance Testing point of view. Refer his LinkedIn article to get the details:
Future of Performance Testing
'Change' is a rule of the world. In 80's, nobody worried about the speed, as the lifestyle was slow. And people bore to wait. In 90's, due to an increase in the number of internet users, the need for performance testing of the website arose which is still continuing in today's world. Now, every year we hear about a new technology or methodology which outdated the existing one. Similarly, in Performance Testing, the conventional method is going to die now. Due to the evolution of AI in performance testing, a quick and accurate result along with root cause of bottleneck can be collected easily.
Tom Smith gathered the thought of 14 performance testing executives about the future of performance testing and tuning which are listed-out in his article. Read the article and predict your future in Performance Testing domain.
Cloud Performance Testing
Cloud computing, a new era's software resources which are shared among the different host. Virtualization and cloud have removed the dependency of local servers. Application, storage and other services are easily deployed on the cloud and can be accessed via Web. Since technology has been changed, so definitely it impacts the other traditional method of development and testing.
RadhaKrishna Prasad had written an informative and to-the-point article on cloud performance testing in which he described cloud, cloud performance testing approach and one case study. So, refer the link to get more details on cloud performance testing.
Open-source Tool Demand
In today's world, trends are changing so rapidly and if we want to go with trend then we need to adopt the new environment and changes and keep ourself up to date. I am continuously watching the interest of companies how much they can pay for performance testing. Yes, there is some degradation in the figures for the paid performance testing tool. In the past and even now some companies or clients do not rely on open-source tools like JMeter. But see the below graph, you will find that some of the open-source tools are searched most on the internet. I am not sure about the current demand, uses and how much clients believe on the paid and open-source tool. But these stats show the start of a new era.
Today, I got another article having a list of Performance Testing open-source tool. Check what are the other performance testing tools apart from JMeter and gather the knowledge at least one among them.
Little's Law and Amdahl's Law
As we know that the Little's Law is a base of workload modelling. In performance testing world, Little's Law falls under queuing theory through which the stability of a system can be predicted or measured with the help of processing rate (response time) and arrival rate (TPS). Dynatrace has published an article to provide more basic details on queuing theory using Little's Law and Amdahl's Law. Click the link to read the article.
Reason for decrease in Throughput
Degrade in throughput is a common issue in performance testing, but do you know what are the reasons behind it? What are the bottlenecks involved to decrease the throughput? Read the given article to understand 4 basic reasons which cause throughput degradation.
Performance Engineer in 2020
Do not wonder by looking into the trades of performance engineer in 2020. Be ready, be up to date and walk with the changing trends. Refer the future predictive article by Andreas Grabner and plan your future learning:
Performance Testing in DevOps
We have heard about DevOps methodology in software development. But how can we implement performance testing as an integral part of DevOps? What are points that we need to take care? All are described very simply by David Buch in his article. Read the article and get the benefit:
Performance Test Result Analysis - Important Metrics
Performance Test Result Analysis is one of the important phases in the performance testing where experience, intellectuality and understanding are required. I have already published some performance test strategies in my blog which help to lead in a correct direction while doing performance bottleneck identification.
As a today's mantra, I am sharing an article related to performance test analysis which elaborates some basic metrics; can help you to understand the initial clue before kick-off the performance bottleneck investigation.
Workload Modelling Practice Quiz
Workload Modelling Practice Quiz:
Additional Details: Once all the scripts are created and validated in the performance testing environment then the next phase (Workload Modelling) comes into the picture. The distribution of load across the identified scenario at a given time is called Workload. Workload helps us to study the behaviour of the system under various identified workload model. The designing of workload comprises of various calculations but the ultimate aim is to achieve the desired goal in various terms. These terms could be the number of users, transactions per seconds, hits per second, throughput etc.
Related Topic: How to perform Workload Modelling?
Performance Bottleneck Identification
The main aim of a performance tester is to conduct a quality check of the application or system from performance perspective. During performance testing, many types of bottlenecks are identified. What is the approach to identify the performance bottlenecks and how to resolve them? The given document (PDF) has a descriptive approach to bottleneck findings and their solutions. Hope it would be a weekend performance food for you on Saturday.
Tips to become a good Performance Engineer
Today's funda is related to Performance Engineering. Neotys has shared an article which stressed over to become a good performance engineering. The simple 11 key points help to spread our thinking in performance testing world. This article comprises of generic strategy and the way to look at the things from the performance engineering perspective. Read it and apply it to your project.
Additional Details: Performance engineering aims to design the application by keeping the performance metrics in mind and also to discover potential issues early in the development cycle.
Related Topic: Performance Testing vs Performance Engineering
RPA in Performance Testing
Day by day, AI (Artificial Intelligence) based devices are going to increase. Even in performance testing AI-based performance testing and monitoring tools help to improve the test quality result analysis and provide a quick result within a minute. Bob Reselman described how the current performance testing world is trending towards Robotic world? Read his article and think what would be your way forward plan?
Calculation of Shallow and Retained Heap Size
I have shared many tips related to heap dump analysis in the past. To continue the treasure of performance engineering related to heap dump, today I am sharing an article which described the calculation of shallow and retained heap size in a very simple way along with the examples (especially last case). Read out this informative post and grab the knowledge.
Related Topic:
Characteristics of a good Performance Tester
Every company defines some roles and responsibilities associated with that role so that a process can be streamlined. In the performance testing world, a performance tester has its own bunch of work which is differed from the other testers. Apart from these roles and responsibilities what are the characteristics of a performance tester so that he/she can think out-of-box and generate some new ideas which can benefit the project. Chris Jones had written a wonderful article to define the characteristics of a good Performance Tester. Read the article and compare your-self whether you are really a perfect performance tester or not?
Transition from LoadRunner to Apache JMeter
Open-source tools are in demand now. Most of the clients have already switched from paid performance testing tool to freeware (open-source) performance testing tool. I found an interesting article which can help for a smooth transition from LoadRunner to JMeter. This article describes a process on how you can guide your team to migrate from Micro Focus LoadRunner to Apache JMeter? A practical project story narrated Swaraj Gupta.
Article Link
AIOps in Performance Testing
The Rise of AIOps: "How Data, Machine Learning, and AI Will Transform Performance Monitoring" written by Sonja Jacob; has described the importance of Artificial Intelligence in Performance Monitoring. With some facts and figures, he proved why AIOps strategy is the must. Read the article using below link.
Note: This is an advanced performance engineering topic.
Importance of Garbage Collection
This article is more relevant to Performance Engineering and described the importance of Garbage Collection.
Additional Details: A Garbage Collector is a Java program which tracked the referenced (live) objects and allowed them to keep in the heap memory whereas the memory of the unreferenced (dead) objects is reclaimed and reused for future object allocation.
Relative Topic: Garbage Collection
2019 Prediction
Let's have some facts what could be the wonder may happen in the year 2019 in Performance Testing World. This post may guide you to choose the specific area of your interest in PT domain.
Now, this is the time to improve your performance testing skills.
Master Apache JMeter
Master in the little master form
'Master Apache JMeter' which is written by 3 developers belong to Apache JMeter team and prefaced by Alexander Podelko. Either you can purchase this book (Link to buy) or read the free sample (Link to read free sample). When I say "Master in the little master form"; I mean this book's free sample only, so Enjoy reading and learning!!
Mobile Performance Testing
Mobile Performance Testing which is new in the market and at its peak. Very few performance testers are aware of the strategy to conduct perfect performance testing for mobile. Bob Reselman published an informative article and described 7 important points on the same. Read it and grab the knowledge.
Mobile Performance Testing Tool:
- NeoLoad
- ExperiTest
- WebLoad
LoadRunner vs NeoLoad vs JMeter
Many performance testing tools are available in the market. Sometimes, it is difficult to choose which performance testing tool is best for the project and will meet all the requirements. A detailed comparison of Micro Focus LoadRunner, NeoLoad and Apache JMeter has given in this post:
Related Topic: Learn Micro Focus LoadRunner, Learn Apache JMeter
Server Timing
Charles Vazac has described the server timing in a detailed manner in his article. He has split the response time and provided the information about each stage. I found this article very useful for Performance Engineer. This is an informative article on Server Timing and how to use it in performance testing. Read the article by clicking below link:
A performance improvement case study
This article is more relevant to Performance Engineering and use of Google Lighthouse. A practical case how Telus Digital improve the performance of the application?
Additional Details: In the open-source tool category Lighthouse is also included. Basically, it is a Google tool which checks the web-quality of a page and suggests to improve the performance.
Performance Testing Checklist
Performance Testing is a kind of art. It needs clear designing, logical scripting, meaningful result analysis and at last a tuned application which every client wants. Since many things, a performance tester needs to align during PT windows so there must be a check-list which can give a clear idea what needs to be done, what is completed and what is pending; without missing any important task. Vitaly Friedman has shared a front-end application performance testing checklist which will help you out to keep eyes on the completed and open tasks.
You can download the checklist (in PDF format):
Capacity planning in Performance Testing
Capacity planning in Performance Testing is a major topic which needs to be understood deeply. More or less capacity planning comes under Solution Architecture and Performance Engineering domain. A performance engineer involvement at the early stage can help to build a tuned application along with architect. Some basic rules are very well captured by Rich Schiesser in his post on Capacity Planning. You can treat those steps as a Mantra of capacity planning.
Capacity Planning: To structure the capacity of the hardware and software of the applications, so that they can handle the expected load.
Performance Testing Books
Another weekend is on our plate!
Let's fill this weekend with some bookish knowledge. I have listed out some good books for you which you can buy (or read free*) if you are a book lover!
1. Software Performance and Scalability: A Quantitative Approach (Quantitative Software Engineering Series)
2. Performance Engineering of Software Systems (The Sei Series in Software Engineering)
3. Testing the Performance of Complex System Simulations
4. Performance Testing with JMeter 3 - Third Edition
5. Excellence in Performance Testing and Engineering Handy Book (Read for Free)
6. Performance Testing Interview Questions & Answers: Most Frequently Asked Questions (Read for Free)
7. Pro Apache JMeter: Web Application Performance Testing
8. HP LoadRunner Second Edition
9. HP LoadRunner: Standard Requirements
Performance Engineering Basics
Performance Engineering; a trendy topic in 2018. As I mentioned in many posts that nowadays companies are more demanding for PE resource rather than a person has only PT skill. In this situation, some questions arise like why PE is so important? What are the activities involved in PE which is deferred than PT activities? What are the basic things which we need to learn for developing PE strategy? All these questions are very well answered in this article using simple bullet points. So read this article and enhance your PE knowledge.
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