Fast upon the heels of the initial 5.0 release in April, Load Tester PRO 5.1 load testing software adds the ability to accurately generate up to millions of mobile device users hitting a website, including iPhones, iPads, Android-based phones and pads, and most other devices. This is a major upgrade that additionally includes a completely resigned load test design and control system, improved support for dynamically scalable websites, Internet Explorer 10 support, and portal license manager integration. 

The increasing web traffic from mobile devices has been noticed for years, but how much does it really affect a website?  A recent mobile device study shows that 7% of web traffic is from mobile devices, which includes both phones and tablets.  Because these devices use different browsers, and sometimes access different versions of a website, and at different network speeds, they put a much different load on a website than desktop users.  Load Tester PRO fully supports mobile-based web browsing with the most accurate simulations that exactly recreate every aspect of mobile web access, including the number of sockets, caching behavior, and mobile bandwidths, up to 1,000,000 concurrent users. To see just how easy it is, watch this load testing video tutorial on Android load testing.

The mobile landscape is also being changed by native phone and tablet applications, running the gamut from games to weather to business apps. Load Tester PRO 5.1 makes it really easy to configure test cases from native mobile apps without requiring that the device is jailbroken or recompiling the source code.  “Companies tell us that they’re rolling out more specialized smartphone applications, and thus exposing their websites to more load-related performance problems.” says Chris Merrill, Chief Engineer at Web Performance. “The last thing you want to have happen at the launch of a big iPhone or Android application is to have the signup process fail, losing thousands of potential new customers.”  This load testing video tutorial shows how easy it is to configure a native Android application, but the process for iOS is just as simple.

Another big trend in high performance websites is dynamic scaling, the adding and removing of web and application servers based on current demand.  While Load Tester has always supported load balancers, using more sophisticated scaling methods used to require extra test configuration.  Load Tester PRO 5.1 adds automatic support for dynamic hostname load balancing, IP fail-over, and simultaneous IPv4 and IPv6 networking.  The challenge of testing systems that can change at will extends to more than networking, it requires rethinking how tests are run as well. “Performance testing has a tendency to surprise us all – it is hard to predict how a system will perform or what kind of problems will arise.” explains Merrill.  To better accommodate large dynamically scaling sites, the Load Tester PRO test control system has been updated so that the test control parameters can be changed right in the middle of a large scale test. “Changing the ramp-up rate during the test can save precious hours on the schedule and add value to each test.”