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Senior Manager - Performance Architect at Publicis Sapient
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Is very user-friendly, supports other tools, and provides in-depth and more detailed analyses
Pros and Cons
  • "Scaling is definitely one of the best features of this solution. There are no issues scaling to 10,000 or 20,000 concurrent users."
  • "In terms of resource management, you need a lot of high capacity boxes if you need to generate a load of 1,000 or 2,000 users."

What is most valuable?

Scaling is definitely one of the best features of this solution. There are no issues scaling to 10,000 or 20,000 concurrent users.

This tool gives you a lot of options. It gives you hyper correlation, etc., requiring much lower programming scans. It's very user-friendly.

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional supports other tools and protocols, such as SAP, Citrix, web services, etc.

Analyses are more in-depth and more detailed, and slicing and dicing is very easy. You can pinpoint load APIs at any point in time. You can know what was happening at a specific minute with regard to your requests, headers, response time, exceptions, etc. It has great reporting capabilities.

What needs improvement?

In terms of resource management, you need a lot of high capacity boxes if you need to generate a load of 1,000 or 2,000 users.

This solution has AJAX protocol or TruClient protocol, which gives you frontend stats and web vitals with very few details. This could be integrated further to exactly map any other leading tools for frontend analysis. That is, it needs further enhancements.

Easy maintenance would be good because now if you want to upgrade the version from X to Y, it takes a couple of days. There has to be downtime as well. Operation processes should be faster and should not have an impact for more than a couple of hours.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for more than eight years.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very good. We have a dedicated POC for Micro Focus. Although we have to follow the process of submitting tickets and waiting for a response, if it's a P zero issue, then we can directly connect with the technical person who has been allocated to us.

How was the initial setup?

The SaaS version is quick and easy to set up. The on-premises version has a lot of challenges, especially related to the DB. You need to have a particular DB version to store the user data. Also, you have to depend on additional licensing from a database side. For instance, if you have Oracle, then you would need an additional license for the Oracle user.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing is on a yearly basis and is relatively expensive.

What other advice do I have?

If your team doesn't have much exposure to the development side, this is a good solution because you don't need much customization. You get a lot of automated features.

I would definitely recommend choosing the SaaS option rather than the on-premises option. The on-premises version has a lot of issues. For example, I'm dealing with version 12.63, and very soon, this particular version will be obsolete in terms of support. You will have to keep updating it in order to get the support for your version.

If you're looking for a tool which gives you more insight and you're ready to pay some extra dollars for it, then you should go for Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional. However, if you need a simple, aim-and-shoot tool for load testing and getting stats out, then you probably don't need this tool that has an expensive license.

Apart from the cost, Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional is one of the natural product choices in the industry. So, I would rate it at nine out of ten. If the cost were relatively lower, then I would've given it a ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Performace Engineer at Yolandi,miller@multichoice.co.za
Real User
Excels in identifying bottlenecks by monitoring slow response times and exposing errors emanating from applications under load
Pros and Cons
  • "For me, LoadRunner stands out, especially with its reporting capabilities, the graphs that can be generated, and the unique feature of measuring our application's response alongside our infrastructure metrics, such as CPU, memory, or disk usage, all presented in graph form. This is something other applications struggle to match."
  • "I'd rate the scalability a six out of ten. The main reason is that it's a very expensive application. Other companies might not be able to afford it. For example, if we need to test an application with 10,000 concurrent users, the license can cost a lot of money. That's where OpenText tools shoot themselves in the foot compared to other tools. Because of the price, many companies, like one I used to work for, decided not to renew their licenses and switched to open-source testing tools."

What is our primary use case?

It's for performance testing of our front-end UI applications, web service systems, APIs, and for the applications that are developed in-house by our solution developers.

We use it as a standalone performance testing tool, not integrating it with anything else. However, I know other clients may integrate it with tools like ALM, which we haven't done.

How has it helped my organization?

LoadRunner Enterprise helps identify bottlenecks in our high-traffic application scenarios. It identifies bottlenecks by monitoring slow response times and exposing errors that might emanate from an application under load. 

It's able to expose these factors to us, allowing us to monitor through LoadRunner and see how the infrastructure is coping during the load test. So, we get a lot of insight into how the application is performing under load.

Moreover, LoadRunner was instrumental in scaling our application for peak load testing. 

There have been situations where we were able to expose some performance degradation, especially in our BI and AIU processes, when a change was implemented to an existing application. We would perform a regression test and sometimes find out that whatever changes had been made actually degraded the application's performance. We were able to expose that and report accordingly for remedial actions to be implemented. 

In terms of scaling up the application, especially for new applications where the business expects it to handle a significant load, we find out through testing if it doesn't meet their requirements. Then, we can advise whether the infrastructure needs to be expanded, scaled out, or up, and we implement solutions accordingly until it meets the requirements.

What is most valuable?

For me, LoadRunner stands out, especially with its reporting capabilities, the graphs that can be generated, and the unique feature of measuring our application's response alongside our infrastructure metrics, such as CPU, memory, or disk usage, all presented in graph form. This is something other applications struggle to match.

The real-time monitoring and analysis feature improved our test accuracy. It significantly enhances test accuracy by providing a holistic view of the testing process. Real-time monitoring allows us to see not only the front-end response times but also what's happening with the back-end systems or infrastructure, making it much easier to identify and troubleshoot bottlenecks.

The tool is user-friendly and easy to learn, which is great for newcomers to performance testing. The challenge comes with scripting, especially for those without a programming background. Understanding code and modifying scripts with conditions requires some coding knowledge. Without it, it's less likely to fully utilize the tool.

What needs improvement?

One thing that comes to mind is TruClient. It's great for emulating real user behavior on an application, especially when you need to consider how the application interacts with the browser UI. It's like using a UFT script but directly within the browser.

However, the challenge is that TruClient can be very memory intensive. In most cases, clients' infrastructure simply can't handle the resource requirements for running extensive TruClient tests.

Ideally, there would be a way to address this memory bottleneck. We encountered a situation where a simple request-response test with HTTP wouldn't suffice. The user interaction involved a browser layer that needed to be factored in for realistic testing.

If OpenText could find a way to work around the memory issue, that would be very helpful. Here's why: sending a request and getting a response from the server is one thing. But users also want to consider the additional layer of the browser interacting with the application. 

To make the test as realistic as possible, you need to test it with different browsers. And to do that with multiple browser windows open, you really need a protocol that addresses this capability. It exists, but most clients can't handle the resource requirements for running such tests.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using it for ten years. It has been quite some while. We are still using the version from 2022, we are yet to update the system. However, we are planning to upgrade it soon. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is alright. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. The only reason I'm not giving it a ten is that sometimes the controller crashes when a test is about to finish. 

It can be frustrating, especially if you run a long test for an hour and it crashes near the end. You can recover the results, but it requires some effort. That's the main stability issue I've encountered. Other than that, it's pretty stable.

So, it can run stably for an hour on some occasions, but on others, it might crash within fifteen minutes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For OpenText LoadRunner, it's just my team, so about five people in our organization. 

I'd rate the scalability a six out of ten. The main reason is that it's a very expensive application. Other companies might not be able to afford it. 

For example, if we need to test an application with 10,000 concurrent users, the license can cost a lot of money. That's where OpenText tools shoot themselves in the foot compared to other tools. Because of the price, many companies, like one I used to work for, decided not to renew their licenses and switched to open-source testing tools. 

Even though they might not get the same value, it's a cost they're willing to bear. So, the challenge to scaling up is the price.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't encountered any truly complicated issues. Because we know how to use the tool for the most part. There was one time we couldn't resolve an issue ourselves and called support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

OpenText LoadRunner was the first tool I was introduced to since I started with performance testing.

I've never used anything else.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment process itself isn't complex for us. Typically, the solution teams handle deployments using their own tools. We just test after the deployment is done. We're not really involved in the deployment itself.

What about the implementation team?

We had a team of ten engineers for the deployment process. 

Moreover, the deployment time can vary between a couple of hours and a few days. The only time it might take longer is if there are external dependencies, where another team's deployment needs to happen first. But usually, deployments are a matter of hours, not minutes.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In South Africa, for a load license with about 5,000 concurrent users, the annual license, not including patches, is around 1.5 million to 2 million, depending on the currency exchange. That's a lot of money, especially for startups. 

Sometimes, you might have the license renewed for support, but if the application is stable, you might not need the annual fee. It can feel like throwing money away.

What other advice do I have?

If they can afford it, then I would recommend it. It's a good product. The problem is the price. So, if they have the budget, then it's the best tool you can go for.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten because if it weren't so expensive, I'd give it a nine and a half or even a ten. The price is really steep. 

It's an enterprise-level tool, but there are also smaller companies developing applications that need testing, and they might not have the budget for such expensive tools. So, if the price were more reasonable, it would be accessible to any size enterprise, big, medium, or small.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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