Performance testing is often overlooked because we simply don’t have access to all the load testing resources we need for the varying performance needs of each application. Instead, we put the application into production and see how it performs. This is not a good situation if the application happens to be mission critical – if the application happens to be at the very “heartbeat” of business process efficiency – if a code change happens to introduce a performance bottleneck.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could access performance testing resources (test engineers, load test tools, virtual user licenses, and load controllers) when we need them and pay for them by the drink so to speak.
HP introduces the Performance Test Unit or PTU.
HP Testing-as-a-Service – Performance Test Service delivers scalable performance load and stress testing based on the consumption of PTU’s. We break up the activity and resources needed for performance testing into PTU’s and assign PTU values to these activities and to the other resources (like Virtual Users and Load Controllers).
For example:
- Develop Load Script (8 Navigational Steps) = 8 PTU
- Run Load Script, Analyze Results = 5 PTU
- Add Load Controller = 25 PTU
- Add 100 Virtual Users (VU’s) = 1 PTU
- Final Application Performance Report = 45 PTU
So now you can test the performance of any application according to its performance requirements, consume the number of PTU’s that are needed, and pay only for the PTU’s that are used. The PTU has a fixed price, so you will have complete transparency to the cost to performance test critical applications.
You benefit from:
- Flexibility to consume what you need and pay for what you consume
- Access to HP performance test tools, virtual user licenses and load controllers as PTU’s
- Access to HP performance test engineers and the activities they deliver as PTU’s
- Peace of mind that application changes are not going to introduce a performance bottleneck
So let me ask you to comment on this question:
Do you do adequate performance testing on mission critical applications? If not, what is stopping you?
My next post will discuss SAP Testing-as-a-Service. We will explore the value of automated regression testing and performance testing using a price per unit model and the flexibility this gives for testing the constantly changing SAP environment.
