Performance test automation usually refers to CI/CD. And CI/CD is an important component, but there is much more. Performance test automation is about anything that reduces manual effort to run tests, to pass information, to communicate, etc.
Some companies have even created test automation groups to lead the way for their companies in this important area. We’ll get to that at the end. We’ll look at some key areas where RedLine13 supports performance test automation.
CI/CD
Let’s start with CI/CD and the most popular platform in this space, Jenkins. This post walks you through in detail how you can use RedLine13 to Build, Deploy and Load Test your Project Continuously with Jenkins. CI/CD can also be used with the CI/CD platform Codeship Load Testing on Codeship with Redline13.
RedLine13 APIs
You can manage your load tests using the RedLine13 APIs. This includes starting your tests, accessing results data, getting error data and more. RedLine13 APIs provide access from your scripts or terminal. Through the command line you can launch a test on one cloud server or one hundred. When tests complete you can use the API to access the results and result files to your own automated data analysis, determining if the performance is acceptable.
One RedLine13 customer is leveraging the RedLine13 APIs, PowerShell scripts, Azure Pipelines, etc. They’ve also built a C# wrapper class for the RedLine13 APIs so they can do it more easily. Read more here.
To view and try the complete selection of RedLine13 APIs, read more here.
RedLine13 Dev Plugins
The RedLine13 Dev plugins give you access to each load agent prior to test launching. Since it is your load agent you have the ability to write in bash script. Your agents can download files or call an internal API to let you know your test script is about to start. Read more about the RedLine13 Custom JMeter Plugin.
Slack Integration
Slack enables collaboration to get the right information to the right people. And Slack is integrated with RedLine13. Read about the Slack Integration with Load Testing by RedLine13.
Customer Example of a Test Automation Team
ACT is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. They have set up an automation team which looks at ways to automate all functional and performance testing. The team is staffed with software engineers who are experienced in functional and performance testing. They look at the best technology for ACT. Then they select the technology and communicate that to the scrum teams that are doing the actual functional and performance testing.
Anita Gadkari, Senior Software Engineer and member of the Test Automation Team at ACT, explains: “Test Automation at ACT in the past three years has evolved immensely and like every software organization we have seen increased software development efficiency. With Python as our functional Automation and JMeter as our Performance automation tool we have experienced faster feedback cycle, expanded test coverage, increased accuracy specially in Backend applications and reduced expenses. Regression test suites have been created that run in the Jenkins pipeline ensuring quality code deployment. We have saved a significant amount after switching to RedLine13 from Blazemeter. Thank you for being so responsive and supportive whenever we have reached out.”
ACT also uses the Slack-RedLine13 integration mentioned earlier to communicate to all members of the scrum team. Heath Meyer, lead software engineer of the Test Automation Team, spoke at the RedLine13 Customer Advisory Board meeting. You can hear him on the RedLine13 YouTube channel.
Customer Example of Jenkins Integration
Infutor is a RedLine13 customer that is quite active with the Jenkins-RedLine13 integration. You can read more about how they are using the team support in this post Integrating Automated Testing with Jenkins.
Try RedLine13 Performance Test Automation for Free
You can try your own test on RedLine13 for free and see how you can do performance test automation with RedLine13.