A beginner's review on IBM Rational Performance Tester
January 09, 2018
A beginner's review on IBM Rational Performance Tester
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Rational Performance Tester
In my organization, we are a separate entity where we own a Java-based public facing Web application. Since it is public facing, performance is one of the critical criteria to be able to meet the expectation of the client. We have strict SLAs related to the performance of the application.
Therefore, we rigorously conduct tests on the application to make sure that we are meeting all the requirements stated by the clients. To test this, we were in search of a performance testing tool which is compatible, and adequate with our application. We finalized a couple of tools including IBM Rational Performance Tester, and finally made a decision to go ahead with IBM RPT, for the following reasons:
1. My Organisation recommends using either IBM RPT or JMeter for performance testing of Java based web apps. This recommendation comes from a detailed research which also involves employee surveys and feedback.
2. For a new team (or for a beginner) IBM RPT is a great tool to start with. Anyone familiar with performance testing understands the importance and complexity of data correlation, of which most of the part is automatically handled by RPT! And for the remaining, it is a piece of cake to do it compared to other tools.
3. RPT provides ways to conduct different types of performance testing with its Performance Scheduler, which is really easy and convenient to create. Also when a test is in progress, it provides a very broad view of all the critical metrics to judge the performance along with graphs.
4. Great and detailed Performance Reports supporting several formats.
5. Reasonable price compared to its competitors.
Therefore, we rigorously conduct tests on the application to make sure that we are meeting all the requirements stated by the clients. To test this, we were in search of a performance testing tool which is compatible, and adequate with our application. We finalized a couple of tools including IBM Rational Performance Tester, and finally made a decision to go ahead with IBM RPT, for the following reasons:
1. My Organisation recommends using either IBM RPT or JMeter for performance testing of Java based web apps. This recommendation comes from a detailed research which also involves employee surveys and feedback.
2. For a new team (or for a beginner) IBM RPT is a great tool to start with. Anyone familiar with performance testing understands the importance and complexity of data correlation, of which most of the part is automatically handled by RPT! And for the remaining, it is a piece of cake to do it compared to other tools.
3. RPT provides ways to conduct different types of performance testing with its Performance Scheduler, which is really easy and convenient to create. Also when a test is in progress, it provides a very broad view of all the critical metrics to judge the performance along with graphs.
4. Great and detailed Performance Reports supporting several formats.
5. Reasonable price compared to its competitors.
- Data Parameterisation/ Data Correlation is made simpler compared to its competitors
- Distributed Load Testing is easier to set up
- Performance metric gathering while a test is in progress
- Th look and Feel really helps a beginner to understand and work with.
- Memory utilization could have been improved.(Eats up system's RAM)! It may crash if a test is conducted with the heavy load if adequate RAM is not available in the VM/host machine.
- Licensing could have been made simpler. IBM's licensing method is difficult to follow.
- Support for protocols other than HTTP. Not really up to the current trend.
- Accuracy in metrics, thus improving system's performance
- Costs less compared to competitor like HP LoadRunner
- Helped the team of beginners learn things quickly
- JMeter and HP LoadRunner
Cost/Licensing: While JMeter is an opensource testing tool from Apache, compared to IBM RPT and HP LoadRunner, RPT is much cheaper than Loadrunner.
Functionality: JMeter provides basic functionalities which are adequate for performance testing, however advanced features are not available (such as load testing with GUI, reporting is very basic etc.). But when it comes to Loadrunner, it offers very broad features and supports a variety of protocols. So in this category, Loadrunner is a winner, but RPT is better than JMeter.
Ease of operating: JMeter is easy compared to LoadRunner, but it has old GUI and look and feel is not that great to understand. Also, most of the things are to be done in a command line, non-GUI mode. While LoadRunner is very advanced with many options, which also confusing sometimes. But RPT, on the other hand, maintains a balance between simplicity and offering of different features. So winner: RPT.
Functionality: JMeter provides basic functionalities which are adequate for performance testing, however advanced features are not available (such as load testing with GUI, reporting is very basic etc.). But when it comes to Loadrunner, it offers very broad features and supports a variety of protocols. So in this category, Loadrunner is a winner, but RPT is better than JMeter.
Ease of operating: JMeter is easy compared to LoadRunner, but it has old GUI and look and feel is not that great to understand. Also, most of the things are to be done in a command line, non-GUI mode. While LoadRunner is very advanced with many options, which also confusing sometimes. But RPT, on the other hand, maintains a balance between simplicity and offering of different features. So winner: RPT.