The new generation Performance Tests guarantee efficiency and stability – get to know the most effective solutions in modern testing
Why Performance Tests are more important now than before the pandemic and how to face key challenges of the rapidly changing digital environment. Along with Tricentis experts, we discuss the most effective solutions in the modern testing area.
There is no doubt that we live in times when each year brings something new. Although we are used to the fact that every year the automotive or electronics market shocks us with novelties straight from science fiction movies, no one expected 2020 to be the year that changed everything. The limitations resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic forced us to stay at home, avoiding contact with other people. They stopped us from our normal daily activities such as shopping in stores, visits to the post office or bank. Instantly, our whole life moved to the internet. All the most important services became available without leaving home.
Welcome to the new online reality
– Switzerland is at the top of the ranking of the most innovative countries in Europe. Swiss companies not only care about modern and user-friendly tools, but also about their efficiency, which increases their interest in performance testing – says Maciej Topczewski, Country Business Lead Switzerland at Sii Poland.
In 2020, 8.42 million people in Switzerland accessed the internet through any kind of device. This means that around 97% of the population is actively using the internet. Over 70% of the population makes online purchases or pay bills online and 52 % are using mobile shopping apps. Such rapid growth and wide use of the Internet in everyday life created an opportunity for development for many companies. Keeping customers and providing a good online user experience is a challenge that enterprises must address.
Keep on updating
In response to the market and its needs, software companies are forced to frequently release new versions of their applications.
– The rapidly evolving nature of digital transformation and the increasing pressure to release new software and applications puts a strain on the development process. The need for speed and agility often come at the expense of proper testing and the quality of the final product. This results in unstable and inefficient applications and requires a new approach that can solve the lack of proper testing in the most efficient way – says, Peter Szedlacek, Sr. Director EMEA Channel and Strategic Alliances at Tricentis.
The resulting pressure causes the development process to be shortened, often at the expense of testing and the quality of the final product. This results in unstable and inefficient applications. Meanwhile, the growing awareness of users and the presence of competition on the market mean that customers go where everything works as it should.
Test partner wanted
For years, Sii has been preparing solutions aimed at improving the efficiency of testing processes, in particular performance tests – which are becoming crucial in such a dynamically changing world. As the foundation of effective performance tests, we focused on partnerships with leading suppliers of tools supporting performance tests.
The obvious choice as a test partner was Tricentis with their NeoLoad offering which supports all modern technologies, regardless of whether it is a website, online store, mobile application, VoD, IoT, WebSocket, SAP, Flex or Citrix. By choosing Tricentis NeoLoad we make sure that all these technologies are supported and at the end we have one solution, one scripting language and unified technology coverage.
What’s more NeoLoad also integrates with the majority of tools supporting the development process and has an open API that allows you to build your own integration. In addition, NeoLoad allows us to perform tests on any part of development process. As its covering API and GUI testing, the solution is ready to be used early on in the testing application cycle..
Test with the best, but… don’t forget to monitor as well
In addition to performance testing, we need to also be able to answer the question of what exactly causes the system to behave the way it does under a given load.
For application monitoring we are using Dynatrace, which allows for fully automatic application instrumentation, technology recognition and tracking of the behavior of individual application components. The Dynatrace agent tracks each user action – from sending a query to receiving a response at every stage of its implementation. Additionally, this data is not sampled, so we can be sure of its completeness.
Let’s trace it! Dynatrace case
Dynatrace supports monitoring at the infrastructure level, collecting statistics on both applications and microservices. It checks the system for vulnerabilities, measures user experience and provides data for business analytics. Dynatrace is compatible with over 500 technologies.
All data collected by Dynatrace is available immediately – properly grouped and ready for analysis. Thanks to simple and intuitive dashboard configurator creating your own views is very easy and does not require any technical skills.
With the little help from Davis
Dynatrace, however, does not stop there. When the agent is launched on the server, at the same time Davis – an artificial intelligence tool – starts to monitor our systems. Davis learns typical operations and behavior of the system and monitors them in search of problems and anomalies. Thanks to this, we can be sure that even if something escapes our attention – Davis will not miss it.
Introducing the new generation of Performance Tests
The combination of appropriately selected tools and the experience of our experts allows us to take performance tests far beyond their widely known, classic form. We create a completely new generation of them, opening up the possibility of continuous testing of the developed product, monitoring and scaling the tests. Performance tests are no longer associated with a one-time activity and Sii is ready to help its clients to prepare a full implementation plan for such approach and tools. We support their integration and execution, organize trainings and analyse performance problems that may appear along the way.
The new generation Performance Tests are a guarantee of the efficiency and o stability of IT systems, which will undoubtedly be one of the key foundations of success in the virtual world in 2021. Properly selected and implemented tools and test methodologies will allow to predict the behavior of the system, thus avoiding failures and unavailability – which will translate into a positive reception of services on the network and will improve the company’s image.
Learn more about our Performance Testing services.