NeoLoad 2.0 review
DownloadNeoLoad project is a load testing software for web application
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NeoLoad project is a load testing software for web application. Load testing increases the reliability of your web application before deployment in production.
Powerful, affordable and very simple to use, NeoLoad is capable of generating high and realistic loads on a web application, getting statistics on the server performance and pointing errors and performance issues.
You can test almost all web application infrastructures: J2EE, .NET, PHP, ASP, CGI,... based applications by recording and playing back HTTP and HTTPS requests.
NeoLoad simulates virtual users with a realistic behavior: those virtual users are able to surf on different pages, filling forms with dynamic values. Different profiles of users can run simultaneously with their own load variation policy (constant, ramp up or peaks) to ensure accurate simulation.
At the test runtime, you will see in real-time the behavior of your infrastructure thanks to the graphical runtime chart and to the main statistics (hits/s, the average response time and throughtput).
After a stress test, NeoLoad shows you hot spots in your website and allows you to focus immediately on important issues. You will be able to eliminate bottlenecks by exploiting results generated from all the collected performance information.
This includes HTTP request times, hits and throughput and all the monitor data from your site infrastructure.
A result report can be generated from the tool and the benchmark report can be forwarded to the company staff or to your customers.
Here are some key features of "NeoLoad":
General
User Friendly Interface
You can easily install and use NeoLoad basic functionalities whithin a few minutes.
Test All Web Applications
NeoLoad is designed to test all server technologies (J2EE, .NET, PHP, ASP, CGI).
Multi Platform Support
NeoLoad has been tested on Windows, Linux and Unix plateforms. Please see the supported plateforms for more details.
Scenario
Automatic Scenario Creation
The browser based recorder helps you to create your test scenario.
Web Page Handling
NeoLoad groups requests (html, images, css, ...) in web page for a better browser simulation and scenario visibility. Frames are viewed like pages in a page.
Dynamic Data
Replace the dynamic data of your test with a powerful system of variables. Different variable templates are available : string, counters, dates. They are automatically generated or extracted from files.
For example this is useful to generate different login/password pairs for each user.
Scenario Validation
Before launching your test, you can validate your scenario, and check the possible issues.
Response Validation
Add some assertions based on the response content, the response size or the response time, to ensure the server returns the expected data under load.
Bandwidth Simulation
NeoLoad can emulate users accessing the server with different bandwidth like modem, ADSL or Ethernet local network.
This feature is required as these different kind of users do not impact the server in the same way.
For example, modem users add an overhead on IO buffering and thread pools while Local network users have a more significant impact on the server CPU usage.
Flexible Load Definition
Create NeoLoad populations with the definition of several profile of users : one browses and reads news, while another purchases a product online. NeoLoad is able to simulate for example 80% of readers, and 20% of purchasers, with 40% of them using a modem connection.
Advanced Load Variation Policy
Find your application capabilities easily with a ramping up load.
Check its stability by generating temporary heavy load periods with the peak load policy.
Native Management of HTTP Redirects
The HTTP redirects are detected by the recorder and re-played dynamically. So the dynamic parameters in redirect urls are automatically used.
Link Finder
NeoLoad is able to extract a link (GET or POST) in the previous response and use it as the next request. This is very useful when the link contains dynamic values known only at runtime.
Variable Extractor
Extract content from a server response and assign it to a variable. This value can be used in other requests everywhere in your scenario such as request parameter, or assertion. For example extract a value generated by the application on the server side, and use it, a few requests later, as a request parameter.
Applet / Flash / ActiveX Handling
NeoLoad records and replays all the HTTP communication between the browser and the web server. The tool can thus simulate client-side components such as Java Applets, Flash and ActiveX.
Server Quick Change
Neoload allows to switch between tested servers in a snap, allowing the use of the same scenario to test the development server and the pre-production server. Moreover, this feature can be used to compare the performance of different servers hosting the same application.
Runtime
Heavy Load Support
The NeoLoad distributed architecture allows you to create a very high load on your server. The controller distributes the load between all available load generators.
Manage Cookies/Basic Authentication/Redirection
Manage automatically the basic features of the HTTP protocol like cookies, basic authentication and HTTP redirects.
SSL Support
NeoLoad records SSL pages, and the load generators plays them back.
It is possible to record in HTTP and to play in HTTPS and vice versa.
URL Rewriting
NeoLoad recorder automatically detects and configures URL rewriting. Load generators handle the user session tracking by URL rewriting or by cookies.
Thinktime
Manage the time to time before playing a page, simulating the time spent by the real user to read the previous page. You can define this time for each page (default value is the recorded one) or easily overwrite this parameter for all the pages. As a browser, NeoLoad will not wait between two requests under the same page.
IP Spoofing
Define several IP used by load generators to simulate real world users in order to test load balancing systems based on the IP address.
Real Time Test Monitors
While running, NeoLoad shows you the progression and the main indicators of the stress test. Look at the average response time or the error rate and see in live how your server handles the load.
Performance Monitors
Define Windows monitors and get CPU, memory and disk usage to inspect your server or database performances. Get detailed monitoring information from Microsoft server products like IIS Web Server and SQLServer (coming soon for Unix).
Proxy
Recorder and load generators can be configured to send requests through a proxy.
Multiple Scenarios
You are able to define multiple scenarios containing the runtime parameters regardless to the definitions of the virtual users. You can easily find and replay a test in the same conditions.
Command Line Execution
Integrate NeoLoad software with your automated testing process by analysing the XML report generated at the end of a test launched from the command line.
Results and Report
Result Summary
NeoLoad presents you a synthetic report of the test with all the key elements like average response time, average hits/s. This summary will probably answer your questions in 10 seconds.
Graphical Display
NeoLoad allows you to graph all the data collected during the test and to filter through Populations and VirtualUsers in order to target a potential problem.
Result Comparison
Easily compare the results of several tests and see the performance gains of your changes.
Error analyser
The error page shows you all the errors and assertions occured during the test with detailed messages. Look at the request sent and the response received. See also the request and the response prior the error since this request may have caused your problem. Then you are able to track down the problem and to resolve it.
Generation Of Report
NeoLoad can generate for you a test report containing the key values of the benchmark and the selected graphs.
Export Your data and Graphs
NeoLoad lets you export the data of the test in a csv file and all the graphs in png image format.
Limitations:
Evaluation limited to 30 days,
Maximal number of simulated Virtual Users: 10,
Minimal Thinktime value (time between page clicks): 3 seconds.
What's New in This Release:
This version comes with many new features that will allow you to easily create scenarios on even the most advanced applications.
Moreover, the new optional modules provide specific advanced features, such as automatic handling of dynamic parameters, advanced scenario customization ("While", "If...Then...Else", "Try...Catch", "Stop Virtual User", and "Random Container"), a multiple authentication wizard, percentile graphs, a SOAP module for Web services support, and dedicated platform and server monitoring modules.
NeoLoad 2.0 keywords