Lesson1

Introducing LoadRunner

Over the last 20 years, companies have turned to software as a means of

automating work. Software applications have been used to drive huge

efficiency and productivity gains and to provide a new medium for

collaboration and information sharing in a global economy. Software

applications have, in fact, become the primary channel both for businesscritical

information sharing and transaction processing of all kinds. Today,

software applications—from e-mail to CRM to Transaction Processing—are

the business.

While software development technologies have changed and matured

tremendously in this time period, the complexity of modern applications

has exploded. Applications may utilize tens and hundreds of components to

do work once done with paper or by-hand. There is a direct correlation

between the degree of application complexity and the number of potential

points of failure in a business process. This makes it increasingly difficult to

isolate the root cause of a problem.

Moreover, software applications aren’t like cars. They don’t have permanent

parts that are replaced only when they wear out. Whether to deliver

competitive advantage or to respond to changes in business conditions,

software applications change weekly, monthly, and yearly. This stream of

change introduces yet another set of risks that companies have to manage.

The incredible pace of change and the explosion of software complexity

introduce tremendous risk into the software development process. Rigorous

performance testing is the most common strategy to both quantify and

reduce this risk to a business. Automated load testing with HP LoadRunner

is an essential part of the application deployment process.