LoadUI for Load Testing

LoadUI is a free load testing tool that is customized to make load testing in SoapUI easier and more efficient. LoadUI allows users to easily distribute the load Tests to any desired number of LoadUI Agents by simply dragging and dropping the tests as required which makes it easy to simulate load on the application. There are various components of this tool. Below is a brief overview of the components available.

1. Generators:

The generators available in LoadUI are the components which generate a load of samples or send a trigger message at a certain rate over a period of time. Different types of generators are available like Fixed Load, fixed rate, ramp, random, variance, virtual user generators. All generators have an On/Off button on their top-left, allowing you turn them off while the Load Test is running.

2. Runners:

Runners are the components actually performing some kind of action against your target system and outputting the results, for example sending a Web Page request or executing a SoapUI TestCase. To get you started there are few runners available like web page runner, Soap UO runner, script runner, process runner etc.

Runners will handle any incoming message as a trigger and use any parameters in the incoming message as applicable. They will have at least two output terminals, one for publishing the results for each request and one for publishing the current number of running requests (a new message is sent every time this number changes).

3. Analysis:

Analysis components are used for analysing and asserting results output from a runner. There are two analysis components currently available:

These are

• Statistics - calculates and outputs statistics on results from a runner. The graph is updated in real-time as configured and its contents are continuously written to the output-terminal, which could be used for asserting, logging, etc.
  
• Assertion - asserts incoming message values, for example output from a runner or a statistics component or response times from a runner component. You can of course add as many assertion components as required to assert any desired response times, etc., in your Load Test.

4. Flow

Flow components are used to control the flow of the Load Test execution, for example to divide load between different components, filter messages, etc. There are currently two router components available: Splitter and Delay.

• Splitter - divides incoming messages evenly or randomly between the configured output terminals, allowing you to for example split the trigger messages from a Load Generator to go to different runners.
  
  
• Delay - pauses the incoming messages for the configured time, for example you could put this between two web-page runners which would delay the sequential execution between them.

5. Scheduler:

Schedulers are of 2 types – Scheduler and Interval

• Scheduler: Scheduler display in the above figure gives an overview of the configured schedule and shows the current position in the schedule.
  
• Interval: Sends a start message after a determined interval (Start At), followed by a stop message after a certain period of time (Duration).

6. Output:

Output components are for output messages from any other component to some destination. Currently only one component is available for this:

The TableLog is useful for visualizing individual results, messages, etc. It has settings allowing you to write its contents to a properties file, making it a good option for logging responses, assertion failures, statistics, etc.

7. Misc

• Note - Used to add notes to the workspace, which you can use to add text to the workspace
  
• soapUI MockService - This will allow you to add a soapUI MockService to your project, in order to simulate a Web Service.