LoadRunner Frequently Asked Questions

Maintained by Mark McWhinney, msm@portata.com

Version 1.1
March 25, 2004

LoadRunner Discussion Group.......................................................................................................... ..........1

What is the purpose of this group?..................................................................................................... ......1
Where is the web site?............................................................................................................... ..............1
How do I post messages to the group?....................................................................................... .............1
What types of messages are allowed?............................................................................................. ........1
Is the discussion moderated?............................................................................................................... ....1
How do I unsubscribe?..................................................................................................................... ........1
Learning LoadRunner................................................................................................................ ..................2
How can I learn to use LoadRunner?.......................................................................................... .............2
What do I need to know to do load testing in addition to knowing how to use the LoadRunner tool?.......2
Where can I get help?........................................................................................................... ...................2
Applications....................................................................................................................... ..........................2
What protocols does LoadRunner support?.............................................................................. ...............2
What can I monitor with LoadRunner?.................................................................................. ...................3
How many users can I emulate with LoadRunner on a PC?................................................ ....................4
How much memory is needed per user?.......................................................................................... ........4
Product................................................................................................................................ ........................4
Can I get a evaluation copy of LoadRunner?...................................................................... .....................4
What is the current shipping version of LoadRunner?....................................................................... .......4
What is the difference between LoadRunner and Astra LoadTest?............................................. .............4
What is the relation between LoadRunner and Topaz?............................................................. ...............4
How much does LoadRunner cost?.................................................................................. .......................4
Where can I buy LoadRunner?..................................................................................... ...........................5

LoadRunner Discussion Group tacks are not OK. Requests for license keys or
answers for test questions are not allowed and
What is the purpose of this group? are reported to Mercury, so please do not ask.
Discussion of issues related to Mercury Interact-
ive's LoadRunner load testing tool. "How-to" questions related to information that
can be easily found by reading the LoadRunner
Where is the web site? documentation are discouraged. Likewise,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loadRunner questions of a very general nature are also dis-
couraged. If in doubt, just ask. Sincere ques-
How do I post messages to the group? tions, usually get sincere answers.
Send email to LoadRunner@yahoogroups.com
Is the discussion moderated?
What types of messages are allowed? Sort of. Anyone can join the discussion group
Any question or constructive comment about without approval and can post a message
technical issues related to LoadRunner or per- without review. However, the moderator may re-
formance management in general is good. Job move messages or ban members at his discre-
postings for positions primarily involving the use tion without notice if there are abuses.
of LoadRunner are OK. Messages should be in
English. How do I unsubscribe?
Go to the group’s web site at http://groups.ya-
Messages about issues unrelated to LoadRun- hoo.com/group/loadRunner and click on the
ner, postings for unrelated jobs, and personal at-

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ner-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Learning LoadRunner
How can I learn to use LoadRunner?
The hardcopy and PDF documentation that is
shipped with LoadRunner is fairly good. You
can learn the tool and something about load
testing by reading the documentation. Mercury
does not send documentation to non-customers.
Please do not ask the forum members to send
you a copy of the PDF.
Mercury Interactive offers courses at their facility
in Sunnyvale and other US cities. They also can
conduct courses at your site. Mercury has certi-
fied training partners that also offer classroom
training.
Some community colleges and for-profit training
companies offer LoadRunner courses as well.
What do I need to know to do load testing in
addition to knowing how to use the Load-
Runner tool?
Unlike functional testing you need to know more
than just how the application under test func-
tions. You need to know how the components
behind the client work and what the performance
issues for the components are.
Specifically, you need to know the following
knowledge and skills:
Components such as web servers, application
servers, database servers, operating systems,
networks and network elements such as load
balancers. You need not have "guru" level
knowledge of each of the components but
should have operational knowledge and an un-
derstanding of the performance issues associ-
ated with the components. For example, a load
tester should know what multi-way joins, indexes
and spin counts are and what affect they have
on a database server.
Protocol(s) used between the client and server
such as HTTP/HTML, ODBC, SQL*NET, and
DCOM.
C. The LoadRunner script language is ANSI C.
It helps to know the C language, but the scripts
are generated and manipulated by LoadRunner,
so there is usually not need to directly edit the
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code. There is also a icon script view which
completely hides the C code.
Communication. Load testing is not a heads
down coding exercise. You will work with many
parts of an organization to coordinate activities,
schedules and resources. Daily interaction with
a variety of people requires good oral and writ-
ten communication skills as well as good people
skills. If you prefer to sit in a cube by yourself,
you should stay in functional testing or develop-
ment.
Where can I get help?
Mercury Interactive Customer Support Site. Vis-
it Mercury Interactive's customer support site
(http://support.mercuryinteractive.com) for sup-
port hours, contact information, and other im-
portant information about customer support. Use
the site to submit support service requests on-
line, and to access knowledge base articles,
user discussion forums, patches, on-line docu-
mentation and the latest product information.
This is available to only customers.
Mercury Interactive Web Site. Visit Mercury In-
teractive at (http://www.mercuryinteractive.com)
for information on new products, events, a list of
local distributors, and more. This is available to
the public.
Mercury Interactive Phone Support. For cus-
tomers in the US, Canada, and the rest of the
Americas, you can get phone support between 6
AM and 5 PM Pacific Time at (877) TEST-HLP
or locally at (408) 822-5400. This is available to
only customers.
For all others, see the contact list on the web at
http://support.mercuryinteractive.com/cgi-
bin/portal/CSO/contacts.jsp
Applications
What protocols does LoadRunner support?
LoadRunner ships with support for the following
protocols. Other protocols are available but are
not necessarily full supported.
E-Business
FTP
LDAP
Web/Winsocket Dual Protocol
Palm
SOAP
Web (HTTP/HTML)
Wireless
 i-mode  HTTP Responses per Second
VoiceXML  Pages Downloaded per Second
WAP  Throughput
Streaming  Transaction Response Time
Media Player (MMS)
Real
 Transaction per Second (Passed)
Mailing Services  Transaction per Second (Failed)
Internet Messaging (IMAP)  User-defined Data Point
MS Exchange (MAPI)  Virtual User Status
POP3  Web Transaction breakdown Graphs
SMTP
Enterprise Java Beans Server Monitors
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) NT/UNIX/Linux monitors - Provide hardware,
Rmi-Java network and operating system performance met-
Distributed Components
rics, such as CPU, memory and network
COM/DCOM throughput.
Corba-Java
Rmi-Java  NT server resources
Middleware  UNIX / Linux server monitor
Jacada
Tuxedo 6 Load Appliances Performance Monitors
Tuxedo 7
ERP  Antara.net
Baan
Oracle NCA
PeopleSoft - Tuxedo Application Deployment Solutions
Siebel - DB2 CLI
Siebel - Oracle  Citrix MetaFrame (available only for Load-
Siebel - MSSQL Runner)
SAP
Client/Server Network Monitors
DB2 CLI
Domain Name Resolution (DNS)  Network delay monitor - Provides a break-
Informix
MS SQL Server
down of the network segments between cli-
ODBC ent and server, as well as network delays.
Oracle (2-Tier)  SNMP monitor - Provides performance data
Sybase CtLib for network devices such as bridges and
Sybase Dblib routers.
Windows Sockets
Legacy Web Server Performance Monitors
Terminal Emulation (RTE) Web server monitors - Provide performance data
Custom inside the Web servers, such as active connec-
C Vuser
Javascript Vuser
tions, hits per second, etc.
Java Vuser
VB Script Vuser  Apache
VB Vuser  Microsoft IIS
 iPlanet (NES)
What can I monitor with LoadRunner?
LoadRunner ships with support for the following Web Application Server Performance Monitors
components. Other monitors are available but Web application server monitor - Provides per-
are not necessarily full supported. formance data inside the Web application server,
such as connections per second, active data-
Client-side Monitors base connections, etc.
End-to-end transaction monitors - Provide end-
user response times, hits per second, transac-  Allaire ColdFusion
tions per second.  ATG Dynamo
 BEA WebLogic (via JMX)
 Hits per Second  BEA WebLogic (via SNMP)

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 BroadVision
 IBM WebSphere
 iPlanet Application Server
 Microsoft COM+ Monitor
 Microsoft Active Server Pages
 Oracle 9iAS HTTP Server
 SilverStream
Streaming Media Performance Monitors (avail-
able only for LoadRunner)
Streaming specific monitors for measuring the
end user quality on the client side, and isolate
performance bottlenecks on the server-side.
 Microsoft Windows Media Server
 Real Networks RealServer
Firewall Server Resource Monitors
 CheckPoint FireWall-1
Database Server Resource Monitors
Database monitor - Provides performance data
inside the database, such as active database
connections, etc.
 SQL Server
 Oracle
 DB2
 Sybase (available only for LoadRunner)
ERP Performance Monitors (available only for
LoadRunner)
 SAP R/3 Monitor
Middleware Performance Monitors
 Tuxedo - Provides performance data inside
a BEA Tuxedo application server, such as
current requests in queue.
 IBM WebSphere MQ (MQSeries) (available
only for LoadRunner)
In addition to these monitors, LoadRunner also
supports user defined monitors which allows you
to easily integrate the results from other meas-
urement tools with LoadRunner data collection.
How many users can I emulate with Load-
Runner on a PC?
This greatly depends on the configuration of the
PC (number of CPUs, CPU speed, memory and
operating system), the protocol(s) used, the size
and complexity of the script(s), the frequency of
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execution (iteration pacing and think times) and
the amount of logging.
How much memory is needed per user?
You can get some approximation of the memory
needs by looking at the "LR 7.02 footprints.pdf"
file located on the LoadRunner discussion group
at groups.yahoo.com/group/LoadRunner/files.
Product
Can I get a evaluation copy of LoadRunner?
No. Mercury does not ship evaluation copies of
LoadRunner. You can contact Mercury or a Mer-
cury reseller to get a demo at your site or via
Webex.
What is the current shipping version of Load-
Runner?
7.8
What is the difference between LoadRunner
and Astra LoadTest?
Astra LoadTest is another load test tool from
Mercury Interactive built specifically for testing
web applications. Relative to LoadRunner it:
 Supports only HTTP and HTTPS protocols.
 Has less functionality.
 Uses the VBScript scripting language.
 Has a larger footprint (~ 5 MBytes).
 Costs less.
 Is easier to learn.
In that LoadRunner supports web applications
plus much more, it is the preferred tool for load
testing web applications. The exception is if the
load testers are non-technical (bad idea) or the
load test project's budget is too limited to afford
LoadRunner.
What is the relation between LoadRunner
and Topaz?
Topaz is Mercury Interactive's line of products
and hosted services for monitoring applications
after deployment to production. The Topaz
products are built with LoadRunner technology
and use the same script recorder. Scripts built
for load testing with LoadRunner can be used by
Topaz for monitoring without modification.
How much does LoadRunner cost?
The main cost drivers for a LoadRunner license
are the number of users to be simulated and
number and type of protocols used. You will
need to talk a sales representative to price out
the various components.
The total cost of LoadRunner typically runs from
USD$50,000 to $100,000 or more.

Maintenance cost is 18% of the total list price.

The maintenance includes new LoadRunner re-
leases, patches, phone support and access to
the support web site.

Where can I buy LoadRunner?

LoadRunner is sold by Mercury Interactive and
by authorized resellers.

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