I finally got time to look at such LoadRunner functionality as goal-oriented scenarios and SLAs. My first finding was that SLA functionality looks completely unrelated to goal-oriented scenarios. They got somehow related in my head – perhaps because SLA is a production goal in my understanding or, maybe, just because they were introduced in about the same time.

When I looked into SLAs earlier most SLAs I saw were like response time for all transactions should be below 2 sec for 99% of transactions. Looks like we can't do anything like this in LoadRunner – SLAs in LoadRunner are set for average response times. Haven't seen such SLAs before – it means that almost half of transactions may be above the SLA and we still meet the SLA. By the way, it doesn't look like it should be difficult to implement something like "below 2 sec for 99% of transactions" in LoadRunner – looks like SLAs is just a reporting mechanism (could be considered as an enhancement request).

I looked through the new LoadRunner certifications.

Accredited Integration Specialist in HP Performance Center v9. Two Prometric exams, $150 each.

Accredited Systems Engineer in HP Performance Center v9. Two exams, look somewhat similar to what Mercury had before, $750 each.

Where the myth that you can use LoadRunner with a regular user came from? I got a client who refused to give me admin rights and I should research this question again. I did it before – but, in my practice, I usually return to the same question after such period of time that the only thing I remember about it is that I researched it before.

Well, it took some time. Doesn't look like the new Mercury knowledgebase is a major search improvement.

Remote user experience may differ significantly from the experience of users using local network. It is not a new thing for web developers, but often missed by developers of corporate applications. Many clients have remote offices with limited bandwidth and high latency that may cause performance problems. If it is a concern, there are ways to verify remote user experience. If we speak about LoadRunner it is possible to mention the following ways to simulate remote/WAN users:

From the note in SD Times: "Russell Daniels, vice president and CTO of HP Software, told SD Times that HP believes its brand is stronger than Mercury Interactive's, and thus all of Mercury's products will carry the HP tag." Hm... Depends in what area... Well, can't say that the trend eliminates concerns about Mercury's merge with HP.

On Tuesday 7/25/2006, CNNMoney.com (along with *many* others) broke the news that the rumored HP/Mercury deal is really happening. A summary and my reaction is below. See the entire release here and draw your own conclusions.

July 26 2006: 9:22 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Hewlett-Packard agreed on Tuesday to buy Mercury Interactive for about $4.5 billion in stock, or $52 per share, in a bid to expand the computer maker's business software operations.

Another great article by Scott Barber Diagnosing Symptoms of Poor System Performance (see pp.14-20) continues to discuss practical approaches to diagnose problems. Together with the previous Scott’s article about the subject How to Identify the Usual Performance Suspects (see pp.20-29) it is a must reading for everyone testing performance.

On Tuesday I attended Mercury NYC Local User Group. There were two presentations from Mercury – product update and business process testing. Most people were interested in functional testing.

Some things that were interesting for me:
- Mercury plans integration with the new VisualStudio, no details
- New TestDirector (for Quality Center 8.2) is re-written to J2EE, multiplatform now
- Quality Center 8.2 includes Actuate reports