Divisions in Load Runner

LoadRunner is an industry-leading performance and load testing product by Hewlett-Packard (since it acquired Mercury Interactive in November 2006) for examining system behavior and performance, while generating actual load.
LoadRunner can emulate hundreds or thousands of concurrent users to put the application through the rigors of real-life user loads, while collecting information from key infrastructure components (Web servers, database servers etc). The results can then be analysed in detail, to explore the reasons for particular behaviour.

Developing a comprehensive test plan is a key to successful load testing. A clearly defined test plan ensures that the LoadRunner scenarios you develop will accomplish your load testing objectives.

To develop a scenario, you create a host list, a script list and a Vuser list.
This chapter describes how to create a host list--the list of machines, or hosts, that execute Vuser scripts during a scenario run.

After running a scenario, you perform an analysis of the run by generating graphs and reports.
If the graphs show a reasonable transaction time for the Vusers, you do not need to further analyze the transactions. However, if the transaction response time is not acceptable, you can use one of LoadRunner's monitoring tools to pinpoint the problem. The monitoring tools are Transaction Breakdown, Network Monitoring, and Resource Monitoring.

LoadRunner Hosted Virtual Users complements in-house load testing tools and allows companies to load test their Web-based applications from outside the firewall using Mercury Interactive's infrastructure.

To minimize the impact of the monitoring on the system under test, LoadRunner enables IT groups to extract data without having to install intrusive capture agents on the monitored servers.

The following list describes the recommended objects to be monitored during a load test:

ASP Server
Cache
HTTP Content Index