Establishing Limits with RedLine13’s (almost) Free Load Testing

Whether you’re setting up a new website, a simple URL, or even managing something as intensive as a cloud-based service for the general public, there’s one thing you’re going to need to know: your limits; the number of people you can actually accommodate all at once. If you don’t know this, then you run the risk of biting off more than you can chew when your service really starts to gain momentum. There’s no need to sacrifice performance for knowledge! So how do you gauge your limits? Simple – do scalability testing with simulated user load!

For those of you who don’t know, Redline13’s (almost) Free Load Testing lets you test the exact limits of your home page, single URL, and cloud servers with the precision and accuracy you need to determine data intervals and anticipated traffic times. In short, it’s a handy way of giving you the tools you need to do what you have to.

The Benefits of Scalability Testing

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Tell it to me in layman’s terms”. Well, here are the most practical and immediate benefits to real user load testing:

  • Less downtime, more uptime!
  • Increasing the scalability of your service; no more guesstimating
  • Reduce hardware cost
  • Create a better map of your actual traffic
  • No more bottlenecking your site’s performance
  • Increase your app’s scalability
  • Trouble shoot performance issues beforehand
  • Save time by testing now rather than stressing later

A few of these benefits by themselves would have saved numerous companies in the early testing phases of some of their services, so learn from their mistakes by knowing your limits. Still haven’t sold you on the idea? The biggest benefit: Affordability!

Affordable At Any Level

Cost is the one thing that makes grown men hesitate to grab their wallets when they found themselves hooked on a product. I can completely guarantee you that you can perform a real user load test despite the stage of your current project.

So how much is this really going to cost? 30$? 50$? Nope! You can actually perform a test for as low as 0.30 cents! The cost will vary a little depending on the type of testing you’re doing. A simple API test can run you about 0.80 cents, while a quick user test with python will cost 1.53$. For those prices, you can perform a quick, executable load test on a child’s allowance, or from the quarters in that long forgotten piggy bank you’ve got tucked away.

Best of all you only pay for what you use and only for what you use. No catch, no tricks. If you can save a fortune in disaster recovery later on by investing 0.30 cents now, then why not?

Bear in mind – RedLine13’s services sync with AWS servers so that you’re billed for the use of the servers you select directly from your AWS account – NOT from RedLine13.  When running tests, you can select servers from around the world, and Amazon’s prices are displayed prior to your decision.  Our model keeps your costs to a minimum and offers maximum flexibility for users.

Flexible Testing

While we’ve mentioned this before, it’s worth reiterating: a core reason why real user testing has become more acceptable is because of its flexibility. By flexibility, we mean that you can do scalability testing on multiple platforms such as:

  • Cloud Servers via an open architecture with precise tuning and control for the cloud load agents
  • Being able to custom test in multiple programming languages such as Python, PHP or Node.js
  • Simple API testing for homepages or URLs
  • Open source tools

With such flexibility and low pricing, it’s quite easy to see why simulated user testing is rapidly becoming an acceptable standard to consider when working out the kinks of anticipated high-performance projects. In the end, there isn’t much of an excuse not to heavily consider real user testing as a viable means to gauge the scope of your project.

Whenever assessing the fails and blunders of those that don’t do proper Load Testing, we often see the same repeating pattern.  Good projects, with sound developers, offering a service of value to their community, don’t think about the fact that the systems and services they build fail (not because something is wrong with them) but because they haven’t anticipated their potential user base.  If there’s demand for your product, the biggest blow to your image and business concept is not being able to scale your service due to improper or insufficient Performance Testing and Monitoring.

Help ensure your business’s scalability with RedLine13’s (almost) Free Load Testing.