Introduction
We recently had the opportunity to speak with the developers at Technocrat about integrating load testing into their workflow. Their specific challenge was writing JMeter tests and scaling them in the cloud. Our conversation with their team provided us with greater insight into how companies like Technocrat use and draw value from load testing, and we wanted to pass those insights onto the testing community.
Technocrat: Australia’s Most Experienced Drupal Team
Operating out of Australia, Technocrat is a consulting company that offers a range of services that revolve around Drupal. Technocrat’s services include building enterprise websites, full stack development, inclusive design, theme development, content management framework services, module development, full/partial site builds, site analysis, performance optimization, and personalized digital strategies.
Technocrat uses Drupal as their platform of choice, and they use it to meet the needs and expectations of their clients. Drupal is a popular, open-source content-management system that is used be more than a million websites worldwide[1. Drupal Homepage] and it’s maintained by a passionate and strong community of contributors.
Technocrat is home to the largest senior Drupal team in Australia. Some of their clients include Presto, Tennis Australia, Adairs, and the Australian Government. Based on what Technocrat offers, they are one of the most inclusive Drupal consulting companies out there.
Challenges: Provide Clients with Working Solutions that are Scalable; Show Clients the Value of Load Testing
As most of Technocrat’s clients are looking for services related to website design, UX design, front- and back-end development, one of their challenges is the need to deliver their clients a scalable and functional product in a timely manner. Their clients range from small companies to large eCommerce sites, so performance and scalability are of the utmost importance for these types of projects.
An additional challenge is that the majority of clients want to see their projects delivered ASAP, often overlooking load and performance tests. No one wants a poor performing website nor do they want extra costs to make it perform fast out of the box. Finding this balance of value, performance, and costs for software consulting companies is a common theme.
Solutions: Incorporate Affordable Cloud Load Testing to Eliminate Bottlenecks and Allow For Scaling
For Technocrat to deliver high-quality products and solutions to their clients, they need to incorporate affordable cloud load testing as needed. Using cloud load testing solutions allows Technocrat to ensure that their products are scalable and are absent from bottlenecks. Additionally, cloud load testing allows Technocrat to easily show their clients why load testing is of value.
In one case, Technocrat used load/performance testing to assist one of their clients, Adairs, who is an e-commerce site. Adairs is a large Australian site that sells a range of home goods and furnishings, having over 100 retail stores in the country. Just days before a major sale, Adairs realized that there were some serious production and performance issues that would negatively impact their site. Not only were certain pages taking upwards of 40 seconds to load, Technocrat recognized that there were major security issues in their code, bad system memory utilization, and absolutely no staging environment.
Technocrat helped Adairs fix their security issues, migrated them to a more powerful server, and used load testing to account for bottlenecks. Technocrat examined past sales, and knew that they needed to create scalable load tests with around 1,000 concurrent users or so. Technocrat then ran a series of scalable load tests, which helped them recognize and inevitably fix the performance issues. Once their work was completed, the page load time dropped from 40 seconds to less than 2 seconds. On the day of the sale, Adairs was able to accommodate some 1,300 users hitting their site simultaneously without any performance issues [Adairs Case Study – Technocrat]. Additionally their revenue from the sale increased some 190% compared to the previous year’s sale. Needless to say, Adairs quickly recognized the value of load testing.
Their Testing Process
Load testing is something that Technocrat has recently started to incorporate into their workflow, and they’re planning on adding performance testing as one of their upcoming services. Like other consulting companies out there, Technocrat performs load tests on a need-be basis. Clients that ask for testing are prioritized first, and they will then work from there. Most of their testing is used by clients who seek website/UX design.
Technocrat approaches load and performance testing in a logical manner. They will first begin to develop their tests in JMeter which will then be uploaded to cloud load testing solutions (RedLine13). Technocrat will begin by testing with only a few virtual users and will then continue to scale the load tests throughout the entirety of their QA process, ensuring any and all bottlenecks/errors are uncovered. After the testing is completed, they will then finalize and deliver their project to their customer.
Value Added
Load and performance testing provides Technocrat with a lot of value as it allows them to consistently and easily meet the needs of their clients. For Technocrat, it’s far easier to run a series of load tests before a project is completed, rather than providing support later when things go awry. They can then demonstrate the value of load testing to their clients by fixing these bottlenecks and other issues, thereby increasing performance. Additionally, they are able to do all of this with a low-cost solution, allowing them to save money for both themselves and their clients.
Conclusion
Technocrat offers a range of different services, most of which are used/built with Drupal. As they offer their clients feature-rich websites built on this platform, Technocrat needs a practical and affordable means to ensure that their products developed for their clients are able to handle a range of different loads, under different scenarios. Load testing helps Technocrat deliver their clients finalized products that are free from bottlenecks and ones that are able to perform without any issues. With the aid of tools like Apache JMeter and cloud load testing, Technocrat is able to run scalable load tests to effectively see just how their products perform under high-stress environments.