Advancing to Next Level
Submitted by Alexander Podelko on Mon, 30/03/2009 - 19:24.
non-functional testing | performance testing | performance testing tools
Will Foy posted questions in LoadRunner Yahoo group about advancing to next level in performance testing and tuning.
Below is my answer, slightly expanded, with the original questions in italic.
What kinds of resources would you advise them to consult
and use as educational material?
All. I put some links I think may be useful on my site, but a lot more is available around.
What kinds of things would you have them practice, practice, practice doing and examining?
I'd put more stress on analysis.
What kinds of systems should they get to know, and as a
consequence, what kinds of system administrators should they begin to pick the brains of?
All. Or let's say this way: those you are working with. You should know something about everything - platforms, databases, application servers. At least enough to ask right questions.
What should they know (and be able to understand and
integrate into DAILY work activities) that they don't?
Almost every performance person I know has an interesting story about getting into this area and usually has a pretty unique background. Everybody starts from different points, so it is difficult to guess what you know and what you don't know.
Who and what has helped you achieve success on a practical level with performance testing?
Books (now the Internet - mainly through Google) and people around.
Aside from knowing LR/PerfCtr inside and out, what tools are in the Excellent Load Tester's toolkit?
It is specific to your environment. Monitoring tools first of all. Plus LR is not the only load testing tool in the world.
I think there are three main kinds of environments for performance testers and depending where you are the learning path may be different.
1. Corporate/IT environment. Usually has some subset of technologies - so you know what technologies concentrate on. Capacity planning and (production) monitoring have high value. Understanding of available infrastructure is important. If there are in-house applications supporting main business, step towards (early) performance engineering may be beneficial. Usually using one (or at least few) load testing tools - so it is better to know these tools well.
2. (Software/Hardware) Vendor. You need to know your products for sure, as well as the environments they work in. Usually using one (or at least few) load testing tools - so it is better to know these tools well (although you may be involved with clients using other tools). I guess working with development teams and (early) performance engineering path would be most beneficial.
3. Consulting. You work with different clients/environments each time. May use different load testing tools - and better know them well because you probably won't have time for learning your tools on-site - you get many other things to learn. Know different protocols / approaches to generate workload. Even more stress on principles, general understanding, and self-learning than to specific tools/platforms - no chances to know all tools/platforms. Collaboration and presentation skills are much more important.
Well, the topic is very complex. The technology is changing so fast, so you usually can't keep pace even with relatively small subset of technology. So you need to pay more attention to principles, general understanding, and self-learning than to specific tools/platforms.
You could find a few more thoughts about the subject in my old post. Information about CMG there is outdated - but the point is still valid. Moreover, this year CMG has the performance engineering and load testing subject area.
And, of course, pay attention to a good discussion in SQA forums about similar subject.
Below is my answer, slightly expanded, with the original questions in italic.
What kinds of resources would you advise them to consult
and use as educational material?
All. I put some links I think may be useful on my site, but a lot more is available around.
What kinds of things would you have them practice, practice, practice doing and examining?
I'd put more stress on analysis.
What kinds of systems should they get to know, and as a
consequence, what kinds of system administrators should they begin to pick the brains of?
All. Or let's say this way: those you are working with. You should know something about everything - platforms, databases, application servers. At least enough to ask right questions.
What should they know (and be able to understand and
integrate into DAILY work activities) that they don't?
Almost every performance person I know has an interesting story about getting into this area and usually has a pretty unique background. Everybody starts from different points, so it is difficult to guess what you know and what you don't know.
Who and what has helped you achieve success on a practical level with performance testing?
Books (now the Internet - mainly through Google) and people around.
Aside from knowing LR/PerfCtr inside and out, what tools are in the Excellent Load Tester's toolkit?
It is specific to your environment. Monitoring tools first of all. Plus LR is not the only load testing tool in the world.
I think there are three main kinds of environments for performance testers and depending where you are the learning path may be different.
1. Corporate/IT environment. Usually has some subset of technologies - so you know what technologies concentrate on. Capacity planning and (production) monitoring have high value. Understanding of available infrastructure is important. If there are in-house applications supporting main business, step towards (early) performance engineering may be beneficial. Usually using one (or at least few) load testing tools - so it is better to know these tools well.
2. (Software/Hardware) Vendor. You need to know your products for sure, as well as the environments they work in. Usually using one (or at least few) load testing tools - so it is better to know these tools well (although you may be involved with clients using other tools). I guess working with development teams and (early) performance engineering path would be most beneficial.
3. Consulting. You work with different clients/environments each time. May use different load testing tools - and better know them well because you probably won't have time for learning your tools on-site - you get many other things to learn. Know different protocols / approaches to generate workload. Even more stress on principles, general understanding, and self-learning than to specific tools/platforms - no chances to know all tools/platforms. Collaboration and presentation skills are much more important.
Well, the topic is very complex. The technology is changing so fast, so you usually can't keep pace even with relatively small subset of technology. So you need to pay more attention to principles, general understanding, and self-learning than to specific tools/platforms.
You could find a few more thoughts about the subject in my old post. Information about CMG there is outdated - but the point is still valid. Moreover, this year CMG has the performance engineering and load testing subject area.
And, of course, pay attention to a good discussion in SQA forums about similar subject.