LoadRunner is an industry-leading performance and load testing product
by Hewlett-Packard (since it acquired Mercury Interactive in November 2006) for
examining system behavior and performance, while generating actual load.
LoadRunner can emulate hundreds or thousands of concurrent users to put the
application through the rigors of real-life user loads, while collecting
information from key infrastructure components (Web servers, database servers
etc). The results can then be analysed in detail, to explore the reasons for
particular behaviour.
Consider the client-side application for an automated teller machine (ATM).
Although each client is connected to a server, in total there may be hundreds of
ATMs open to the public. There may be some peak times � such as 10 a.m. Monday,
the start of the work week � during which the load is much higher than normal.
In order to test such situations, it is not practical to have a testbed of
hundreds of ATMs. So, given an ATM simulator and a computer system with
LoadRunner, one can simulate a large number of users accessing the server
simultaneously. Once activities have been defined, they are repeatable. After
debugging a problem in the application, managers can check whether the problem
persists by reproducing the same situation, with the same type of user
interaction.
