testingReflections.com - performance testing patterns

Webinar: Application Performance Testing; From Conception to Gravestone

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:49:33 +0000

CMG'10 - Call for Papers

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:55:48 +0100

The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) calls for papers and presentations for for CMG's 36th International Conference to be held in Kissimmee, Florida, December 6th through 10th, 2010. The 2010 CMG conference will cover all areas of systems management, including but not limited to: capacity planning, management and reporting, modeling and statistics, measurement, tuning, performance engineering and load testing, as well as the latest developments in the overall field of computer performance evaluation.

Agile Performance Testing in Software Test & Performance

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:32:39 +0000

A magazine version of my Agile Performance Testing article was published in the November 2009 issue of Software Test & Performance.

I explained what this article is about in my earlier post

Performance Engineering and Load Testing at CMG'09

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:30:23 +0100

There is a separate subject area for Performance Engineering and Load Testing at CMG'09 (held December 6-11 Dallas, Texas). The number of performance testing sessions significantly increased. Of course, there are a lot of excellent sessions in traditionally strong CMG areas such as capacity planning, monitoring, performance analysis, and modeling.

CMG'09 Call for Papers

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:34:49 +0100

The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) calls for papers and presentations for CMG's 35th International Conference to be held in Dallas, Texas, December 6th through 11th, 2009. Mentoring is available!

Since 1975 CMG is a volunteer organization of performance professionals and the CMG conference is the best place to learn about capacity planning and performance analysis. This year CMG has Performance Engineering and Load Testing subject area, so the program in these areas should be strong too.

CMG News

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:42:12 +0100

It is still not late to submit a paper to the CMG conference. Although the abstract deadline passed, the enforced deadline is only the paper deadline – June 13.

I believe that it is the best conference about computer performance. Conference proceedings from 1997 through 2005 are available to the public – probably the largest collection of performance-related papers (and most of them are practical).

Multiple Dimensions of Performance Testing

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:18:00 +0100

Almost all experts agree that pre-deployment "waterfall" performance testing (which, with the record/playback method, confused by many as the performance testing itself) is not enough - too little, too late. Actually it is just one very specific way of performance testing - with a full spectrum of other approaches, which are used so infrequently (at least as intentional performance testing techniques) that I don't recall finding any good classification. Thinking about it, I see several dimensions of performance testing which, although definitely correlated, probably might be considered somewhat independently - of course, just a raw idea for the moment, just an effort to order thoughts a little.

Pitfalls of the "Waterfall" Approach to Performance Testing

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:23:17 +0000

Looks like the pre-production validation approach to performance testing becomes typical for large corporations (if there is any at all):

-get the system ready
-develop all scripts requested (sometimes offshore)
-run them all together
-compare with the requirements provided
-allow some percentage of errors according to the requirements
-involve the development team if requirements were missed

Re: Performance testing and coverage

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:38:38 +0000

Can't leave Ainars Galvans' posting unanswered. I think that it touches very important issues I am fighting for long time with, so this post is going beyond just a comment.

It is very interesting that I completely agree with Ainars on most items except final conclusions – which I completely disagree with. I suspect that it is rather terminology difference. So let's start with what I disagree.

CMG Opens Its Content to the Public

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:30:21 +0000

The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) is making its conference proceedings from 1997 through 2005 available to the public. I believe that CMG holds the best practical conference in performance analysis, capacity planning, and related areas. In addition to the areas listed below, I'd definitely add performance testing. Here is the official mail CMG sent:

Performance Requirements

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:08:27 +0000

My performance requirements paper was published in the January issue of Software Test & Performance (pp.18-24).

It was simple: I just sent a draft – and now I am reading it printed. With a new name - or even two: it is referred as You Can Gauge Performance Without Requirements in one place and Gauging Performance in The Absence of Measures in another. Not to mention other minor improvement.

Qualitative and Quantitative

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:36:07 +0000

A few thoughts inspired by a question about qualitative and quantitative information reporting performance test results in Yahoo's LoadRunner group.

My understanding of qualitative and quantitative in the context of reporting performance test results is:

Quantitative is what we directly measure or straightforwardly calculate from direct measurements (like response times or resource utilization)

What Skills Performance Testers Need and How to Get Them?

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:31:39 +0100

From time to time I see questions on different forums asking what skills are necessary for performance testers. There were pretty interesting discussions. Looks like most experts agree that performance testing requires more skills than just knowledge about how to create a script for a particular load testing tool. While it is still possible to imagine a performance tester in a large corporation with deep specialization who only creates scripts and mechanically runs them while other performance experts monitor the system and analyze results, I don't see many perspectives neither for this person, nor for the approach. Systems become so complicated now that the sum of specialized expert views doesn't give the whole performance picture.

Classify Performance Tests: IVECTRAS

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:45:02 +0100

This is the second installment of a currently unknown number of posts about heuristics and mnemonics I find valuable when teaching and conducting performance testing.

Other posts about performance testing heuristics and mnemonics are:


I have struggled for over 7 years now with first figuring out and then trying to explain all the different "types" of performance tests. You know the ones:


Well, I finally have an alternative.

IVECTRAS

CMG 2007 Call for Paper

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 15:58:19 +0000

This year performance (load, stress) testing will be a focus track at the CMG 2007 conference. It is the best conference, by my opinion, about performance-related topics. Below is the official text:

The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) calls for papers and presentations for the 33rd International Conference to be held in San Diego, California, December 2nd through 7th, 2007. The 2007 CMG conference will cover load and stress testing, benchmarking, performance optimization, software performance engineering, resource management, capacity analysis, simulation and analytic modeling, and cost management with special emphasis on Virtualization, System Oriented Architecture (SOA), IT Service Management and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and the technology implications of globalization.