VuGen-Installation : How to install only VU Gen

Today, I am going to start off with the installation of VUGenerator (VUGen) of evaluation version of Loadrunner 9.0.

Firstly check your systems configuration and minimum resource requirement as below-

1) Processor              -  Not less than PIII (1 GHz) And recommended is PIV (2.4 GHz)
2) Operating Systems -  Windows 2000 (SP 4) or more; Unix- Solaris 9 (2.9) and 10 (2.10), HP-UX 11i V2, IBM AIX 5.2 and 5.3, RedHat Linux Advanced Server 3.0
3) RAM                    -  1 GB
4) HDD                     - 2 GB

 Tip: For seamless installation close the antivirus (specially McAfee or Aladdin's eSafe anti-virus) if installed on your machine.

After having the verification of the above required specifications, run the installer exe and you will see the below screen-

Here click the Loadrunner full setup option to install the VUGen and keep following the instructions.
Click Next while you are prompted to install the pre-requisites for Loadrunner VUGen and agrre the terms and conditions thereafter.

After installation of prerequisites, you will be asked for selecting the type of installation. Just select "Custom" installation because we donot want to install the complete setup but VUGen.

Then you will get few options to select from. Just select "VUGenerator" and click Next. And keep clicking on Next button untill Finish.

 Note:- Please do not select Controller option otherwise you have no chance to format your system after 10 days, since the license is required only for LR controller and not VUGenearator.

After complete installation you will get the following screen-

Figure 2 - Startup screen

Here we are all set to start the recording of our script. Folks, if you are prompted to enter the license key after installation, just cancel without even bothering :)..Its not going to hamper your practice anymore..;) 

We will take the recording in later part... Till then you play with the installation of LR VUGen... Or if your machine is not equipped with the minimum requirements for installation, just start upgrading  that. :)

Till then chao...

Loadrunner- A performance Testing tool

Folks! I know I am not good in writing blogs and since it’s my very first day in this pursuit, you can expect some unexpected omissions/mistakes. :)

So let me begin with the introduction to web performance testing tool- Loadrunner.


Introduction:


Loadrunner was developed by Mercury and has been one of its extensively used kind of tool for the performance testing of various applications on different protocols (like- HTTP, SAP, Oracle, Seibel, SOAP, ICA to name a few) . I am not aware of much about the history of LR (Commonly used term for Loadrunner) but as per my tiny knowledge base, it came in the market with version 7.01 in August 2001. Later on many other versions came in the market but not with full fledged stable functionality. So Loadrunner was emerged with one of its stable version - v8.0. Currently the latest version which is being used in the IT era are version 9.0 and 9.5. Although version 9.0 has got few or for some several bugs. About version 9.5- this is now under functionality of user and so far there are positive outcomes to go with.


To give LR a shot one can start with an evaluation version of 10 days which can be downloaded from http://www.hp.com/ Ohh!!! I forgot to mention that Loadrunner is now with Hewlet Packard (HP). Mercury was acquired by HP on 25 July 2006 and on papers all the acquisitions were completed on 6 November 2006.



Components Of Loadrunner

There are four components of LR-

1) VUGen (also called as Virtual User Generator)

2) Load Generator (Also called as Load Injector)

3) Load Controller

4) Load Analyzer

First Component- VUGen

VUGen component is used primarily for recording the script. Then one can customize (modify) the script. I will be completely describing on how to record the script and how to customize in the later part.

Second Component- Load Generator

The significance/ function of Load generator(s) is/are first these are agents (clients) used to send the request to the web server and second, it communicates with the Load Controller (discussed in the next section).

Third Component- Load Controller

The third component is Load Controller which is used for the management of scripts/scenario/scheduling/monitoring/request/responses etc.

This is the platform on which a tester includes the scripts to be executed and configures the timing for how long the test will continue- Start time, end time, ramp-up, ramp-down of users etc...

Also, it allows tester to add the measurements for various performance counters for analyzing the resource usage of various servers (like Web server, App server, DB server, Report server etc)

Fourth Component- Load Analyzer

Load Analyzer is the tool used for analyzing the result of the performance/load test. This is very interesting area where an analyzer requires very good analytical mind. This tool provides you all kind of graphs like- transaction response time, running virtual users, error graphs, resource utilization graphs etc..

Moreover, you can create the template(s) for reusability, you can filter the un-necessary information from the result, you can save the session and generate the reports in various formats like- excel, word and HTML.

Introduction To Web Performance Testing

To start with, A web performance means different to different stakeholders (client, Business Analyst, Architect, Manager, Developer and testers). Overall, in the current scenario, a web's performance is analyzed by the response time (or page response time, or transaction response time).
The response time is the time taken by a HTTP page to appear to the end user (a person who actaully is browsing the web applciation).

This is obvious that for a layman the above definition is appropriate, but when we come to the broader one, we cannot set a gamut for it. For instance, an architect would be looking for the design pattern bottlenecks, the topology and network bottlenecks. A DBA would be interested to analyze the performance related to database parameters like- Long running queries or stored procedures, blockings (lockings), deadlocks, indices etc... A developer would be interested in finding out the bottlenecks in his own module/group of modules for the response time point of view (irrespective of the background processing in the environment)....A client would only like to know wheter his applciation is able to handle the specified number of user load and all the benchmarking parameters are as per the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Whereas a tester has to look upon from bottom to top view of performance parameters... Unlike other stakeholders, he has to see all the covering parameters cater to the performance of application...

This was just an introduction on what actually a web performance means for a layman...and how its definition varies from person to person.