Item: OpenText LoadRunner Professional
Rating: 9
Author: Chris Trimper

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We leverage the Micro Focus LoadRunner tool suite to validate that our applications (internal and external) can support the expected load to run our day to day business as well as future spikes in volume. We are able to easily perform various load scenarios against our applications with the toolsets using various technologies including SOAP, Rest and Web Browser.

Pros and Cons

Easy to provide varying and dynamic test data
Continually easier to test browser apps more realistically
Simple config to make 'any' scenario
Ability to manipulate near any input type
Ability to easily interrogate responses for accuracy

Working with large request bodies can be cumbersome
Would love to see a C# version

Most Important Features

Easy web service scripting
Ability to obtain detailed results from a test for trending
Easy browser scenario scripting
Simple to use data/parameterization
Easy scenario building and configuration

Return on Investment

We've been able to prevent possible performance impacts of applications
When a degradation does exist in production we can replicate and triage with driving traffic to our test regions
By adding validation to our transactions we can measure both for response time as well as accuracy in functionality
As we develop various integrated systems we can ensure they exist well without negative impact upon each other

Alternatives Considered

Micro Focus AppPulse Active, SoapUI Open Source, supported by SmartBear, Postman and Apache JMeter

Micro Focus LoadRunner fit well into our portfolio of tools with its long track record, ability to test near any application technology we adopt and allow for a single / cohesive toolset to drive our performance testing needs.

Key Insights

Do you think OpenText LoadRunner Professional delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with OpenText LoadRunner Professional's feature set?

Yes

Did OpenText LoadRunner Professional live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of OpenText LoadRunner Professional go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy OpenText LoadRunner Professional again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Micro Focus LoadRunner and its suite of tools, specifically VuGen works wonderfully for us for all web, http/https and web service calls. We've been able to build tests for near any scenario we need with relative ease. As long as we have crafted up requirements for our scenarios / scripts to managed scope, we've had high success working with scripting and data driving. Our main tests are web service calls - typically chained together to form a full scenario with transactions measuring the journey or a similar (measure along the way) journey through a browser. For web services we will use VuGen and browser we've shifted to Tru Client I have had little-to-no experience scripting against a thick client where a ui-driven test would be required. I know its possible but quite costly due to the need to run the actual desktop client to drive tests. We've been fortunate enough to leverage http calls to represent client traffic.

Reflecting on features of Micro Focus LoadRunner

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Micro Focus LoadRunner (formerly HP LoadRunner)