OpenText LoadRunner Cloud Reviews

Micro Focus LoadRunner Cloud is used for enterprise performance modeling and validation of enterprise networks and tax applications.

Both the professional and cloud versions of Micro Focus LoadRunner use the same scripting or programming to execute performance modeling operations. 

This feature allows users to use various programming languages such as Java, C, or C++, which can run within either of the two environments. This flexibility in the programming language is a strong point of the software.

Enterprise is the next level up for professionals. But if you have the cloud version, you are almost there. Because that was the way it used to be. They didn't previously have the cloud version. You had LoadRunner Enterprise, and you had LoadRunner Professional. 

Since the cloud has become more and more important, they have now expanded that, and they have now the cloud version as well. We use both.

There are always areas that can be improved.

One area of improvement in the software's support is the replaying of captured data within the development environment. 

It would be beneficial if the replay feature could accurately mimic what the actual application is doing for better analysis and testing.

As web technologies have evolved rapidly in the past few years, the software has included a runtime viewer to debug scripts along with other logging features.

However, the additional logging can be expensive, and the runtime viewer needs to be updated to better support newer web technologies.

The logging feature itself is not problematic, but the discrepancy lies in the outdated runtime viewer's inability to effectively support newer web 2.0 technologies, leading to a less visually appealing and potentially less informative display. 

Despite this deficiency, users can still access all the necessary logging information and tailor it to their needs.

In summary, although the logging feature in LoadRunner Cloud is useful, there is a discrepancy in the runtime viewer when dealing with newer web 2.0 technologies. However, you can still access all the necessary logs and set them according to your needs. The main issue is the lack of ease of use in the runtime viewer, which needs to be modernized to better support newer technologies.

There is a reporting component of the cloud that could be improved, but it could simply be different from what I'm used to. I'm more accustomed to using the analysis program included with the on-premise software, whether LoadRunner Enterprise or LoadRunner Professional. 

The analysis engine, one of three major components of the entire software package, examines the data collected by the load test, or performance test, I am not familiar with what it is referred to as and produces a variety of reports. 

They do that on the cloud as well, but I'm not sure if it's as detailed, and we may not have as much control over what you want.

They do that on the cloud as well, but I don't know if it's as and it seems to be pretty detailed, but we maybe not have such much control as to what you want to get, but I think it's still more than adequate in the in most cases.

I have been working with Micro Focus LoadRunner Cloud for more than ten years.

We have both the professional version as well as the cloud version.

It all depends on who you end up with. Each company has different levels of technical support. They have levels one, two, and three, followed by the RND. If you have a basic question, perhaps the level one or level two personnel can handle it. But, if you have anything really technical, you must go to level three, and sometimes it takes a little more push to have that sort of case elevated to the appropriate individual.

It isn't, and they have individuals that will allow you. They have customer success managers, customer engagement managers, or whatever you want to call it who help customers to achieve this. If you are a paying customer for support, they have staff like that who can help move things ahead. Yet, it is one area where there may be some slight improvement.

Pricing is dependent on what you're referring to. If you're talking about the cloud, it's likely competitive. However, if you're talking about the on-premise version, professional or enterprise licenses are required. Prices are on the high side. They are not cheap.

That's one of the benefits of the cloud. The most important aspect of the cloud is that it applies to everything. They take care of the inconvenience of maintaining the infrastructure required to support your performance testing environment, regardless of the application.

I'm familiar with both. I have been with LoadRunner long enough to understand what it's like to manage one of those environments because the cloud didn't exist ten years ago. That's significant time and effort savings for the customer, but you pay for it.

If they don't give it away for free, you have everyone who will have someone do all the maintenance for you, such as setting up your servers and making sure they use to start up the servers appropriately with the right level of software and keep the software up to date, and all that stuff. That costs money, and it is not free. There must be a careful balancing act between how much you will use the cloud and what you will do on-premise.

I would rate Micro Focus LoadRunner Cloud a nine out of ten.

In terms of what it does, it's probably one of the best. 

I haven't really compared it to any other cloud version. I'm very happy with it for what it does. I would say nine because it definitely takes care of the issue of maintaining all the servers and ramping them up on a consistent basis. There are very few outages in that regard, which is another good and very positive aspect of the cloud.

We use LoadRunner Cloud for working with banks, and I find the tool incredibly versatile for our varied load testing needs across different business units. Whether it is testing the API backend for core banking systems or the web frontend for digital applications, LoadRunner Cloud handles it all with ease. 

One of LoadRunner's standout features is its extensive support for various TechStacks and protocols. Unlike other tools, LoadRunner excels in integration and protocol support, ensuring it can capture data behind proxies and work seamlessly with diverse technology environments. This versatility makes it invaluable for testing applications across different platforms and protocols.

One area for improvement in LoadRunner Cloud, especially for agile models, is its limited support for functional testing alongside its robust non-functional testing capabilities. Unlike some other tools in the market that offer both functional and non-functional testing within a single platform, LoadRunner requires separate test scripts for each, doubling the testing effort.

I have been using OpenText LoadRunner Cloud for almost ten years.

LoadRunner Cloud's scalability has been reliable for my needs, although I haven't tested it on a very large scale like e-commerce platforms might require. As a bank, I have found it to be cloud-based and easily scalable, with no issues in distributing load or managing large tests.

OpenText's technical support is generally responsive and helpful. They address issues effectively, although specific or niche protocol requirements might take longer to resolve due to prioritization. Overall, I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

Positive

We have used similar solutions like JMeter and NordLayer. LoadRunner's compatibility with mainframe systems, along with other monitoring tools like BMC Patrol, sets it apart from other options we have tried.

The solution is a bit expensive. The pay-as-you-go model offered by LoadRunner Cloud is important to us, especially when considering the cost-effectiveness of performance testing.

LoadRunner Cloud's infrastructure management-free approach is a big plus, especially for multi-geography organizations like banks. By leveraging cloud-based load generators, you can ensure native performance testing without the hassle of maintaining hardware. Plus, while there may not be direct cost savings, the convenience and flexibility of cloud deployment can lead to more efficient resource utilization and potentially lower operational overhead in the long run.

Overall, I would rate LoadRunner Cloud as a nine out of ten. It is technically superior and well-executed, but the cost is a drawback. Additionally, its focus on non-functional testing means separate scripts are needed for functional and non-functional testing, which can slow down testing processes. 

We are using all the indexes and the features provided by the solution.

We have an infrastructure that is developed on the cloud. We use the product because it is more feasible to have our applications on the cloud. It is a trustworthy brand. The data I present to my customers are to the point. I do not have to check on the matrices again to verify whether it is false.

The reports are very relevant to the customers’ expectations. The tool has its own APIs for its customers. It is very easy to collect the performance data. In the last year, we have executed major tests multiple times. It's very easy to use the APIs to collect our results and create a dashboard as per our needs.

It is very important to us that we can plan and run tests using LoadRunner Cloud without having to manage testing infrastructure. It was a niche requirement for us not to bother about those things and focus on the main targets. It is the best thing that we can get. The solution saves us money by not having to maintain hardware and the power costs associated with the hardware. We have saved 25% of the cost.

The product must provide agents to monitor servers. If we want to monitor our servers, we should be able to do it by integrating the servers with LoadRunner Cloud’s dashboards. The added feature will enable us to see exactly what is happening in the servers at a particular time.

I have been using the solution for more than five years.

I haven’t seen any stability issues. The stability is good.

I have scaled the tool up to 1000 users. It comes with its cost.

I got a solution from the support team every time I had queries.

Positive

I have received an ROI from the product.

There are other tools that provide the cloud capabilities and key features that LoadRunner has, but LoadRunner‘s brand and trustworthiness are more important to me.

Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use OpenText LoadRunner Cloud for different types of testing, including load testing, performance testing, etc.

The product’s most valuable feature is the Vuser license; it allows us to reduce the cost as per requirement. Additionally, its setup process is accessible as well.

We encounter hurdles while running the professional version for on-premise setup. They should work on this particular area of improvement.

We have been using OpenText LoadRunner Cloud for nine to ten years.

The product is more stable compared to other vendors like NeoLoad and JMeter.

It is a scalable platform. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

The product’s technical support team’s response time could be better.

Neutral

We use NeoLoad and JMeter.

OpenText LoadRunner Cloud’s setup is straightforward. I rate the process a nine out of ten. Although, I rate the process for the on-premises version a seven out of ten as we face challenges there. The on-cloud setup takes four to five hours to complete. It takes longer if there are some additional protocols included.

One executive from our team and one from LoadRunner’s team work on the on-cloud setup process.

OpenText LoadRunner Cloud is economical. However, it is expensive compared to other tools.

I recommend the product for performing testing of short windows. It would help if you opted for other tools, in case you are working with long windows. I rate the product a nine out of ten.

When we test retail applications, which are hosted across the United Kingdom, we try to save the load generators on a cloud and then do load testing. This is to do with holiday readiness and to certify a few deployments to production in order to make sure that performance is not degraded. We use Micro Focus LoadRunner Cloud both for integrating with the CI/CD pipeline and for standalone instances.

It's a fast product, so you don't have much trouble in terms of maintenance overhead. You don't want to just look into configuring load generators, look for upgrades, and end up having that take up a lot of your time. With this solution, you just log in and you start using it. This means that there is a huge benefit in terms of the overhead of maintaining the infrastructure and the maintenance effort.

Some retailers have a global presence now, and you can spin the load generator from whatever location you need. You can easily run distributed load testing, rather than procuring the load test across the globe and then getting tunneling, etc. That's one of the great features.

LoadRunner Cloud's reporting features are valuable as well. We can get a quick PDF without having to analyze the local data and then imaging it in the report.

Sometimes, on private or a standalone instances we see users getting dropped off. You may have started to run your test with 2000 users, and you may see that a few users got dropped off. Finding the reason is always hectic. I haven't seen these issues on LoadRunner Cloud.

If you get a raw file on a standalone instance, you are on your own to splice and dice the results. I want to see errors versus response time, and I want to see how throughput was performing when there was a spike in error or response time at a certain period of time. These type of options are not available on LoadRunner Cloud, and they would make the user's life easier and would help him drill down to the exact time.

In the next release, it would be nice to have more coverage in terms of load generators. Then, you would be able to drill down on the raw research and analyze more in terms of response time spikes or errors.

CI/CD integration could be a little bit better. When there's a test and if you see that there are high response times in the test itself, it would be great to be able to send an alert. It would give a heads-up to the architect community or ops community.

I've used this solution for about a year.

I haven't seen any issues with stability during six to eight hours of continuous exhibition. There were no packet drops due to connectivity issues or any problems with regard to line monitoring.

I didn't have any problems adding users in tests with a maximum of around 3000 users. Once in a while, we have issues with refreshing.

We used Performance Center for ten years. We compared other solutions and decided to switch from standalone to SaaS-based. So, we went with LoadRunner Cloud. We felt that it was a bit expensive, but feature-wise, it was pretty much on par with products from competitors. Also, we didn't see any issues with scalability when we ran a higher competency task.

Other tools are available in the industry, but they're not user-friendly, or they have limited features. Some have issues with scalability.

The initial setup was definitely difficult in the earlier version. My team was sometimes not comfortable with the earlier version because there were a lot of issues with regard to the spinning of loads and data. There were limited options in terms of reporting. Also, there were very few graphs where you can monitor online compared to those in the current one. The current version is more mature and better.

Because we don't own anything, we created our account and then got started with the license.

When we compare the price of LoadRunner Cloud with that of products by other SaaS providers, it is a little bit on the higher side.

I would rate LoadRunner Cloud at nine out of ten because it is user-friendly. You don't have to have much coding experience for configurations.

I have been using it to analyze the performance of various enterprise systems like SAP, web applications, Oracle Labs, and mobile app applications as well. The objective of the performance testing is to assess the system and whether it can withstand an actual load.

One of the main benefits is that we don't need to worry about load generators. Before we had Loadrunner Cloud, we had 10 to 20 load generators, and we needed to maintain them. There were always upgrades. We would also have to configure the load generators when we were ready to test, and at times there was stuff to clean up. None of that is necessary anymore. We can concentrate most of our time on creating scripts and configuring Loadrunner based on our objectives. It's very easy for us. We don't need to worry about what happens in the backend or how the load is distributed.

A second advantage is the reporting system. Once a test is done, even if it's in continuous integration and continuous delivery, it automatically triggers and produces reports. We can send the reports to multiple dev teams whose developers are expecting the reports.

Another advantage of the solution is seen compared to others we have used, like JMeter, and IBM solutions. LoadRunner has reduced a lot of the time involved in the scripting cycle because of TruClient. We only need to record one time and we can configure it accordingly to create various scenarios. It has reduced scripting time by about 50 to 60 percent.

When we do mobile applications, every build can be tested with LoadRunner Cloud. Once the developer checks into a particular branch, we call it a mod branch, the performance test is already integrated into it. They can trigger it through their continuous pipeline. For mobile development platforms, it's very crucial because notifications and other things need to be tested before we send to prod. Notifications are very load-sensitive because they go to every user—it could be 10,000 or 20,000 users—and we previously had issues with this. Using LoadRunner Developer and continuous integration has helped us.

Recently I have found the TruClient tool to be very useful. My team is involved in a lot of performance testing of applications including mobile platforms and different types of web browsers. In those cases, LoadRunner TruClient is very crucial to testing the performance. TruClient is one of the best features, one I use every day to create load scenarios.

The fact that the solution supports multiple protocols such as open source, VuGen, TruWeb, TruClient, and SAP is very important because these protocols help us to concentrate on what is really needed to produce performance tests. If something is not supported, you have to use other tools or find other ways of assimilating loads. For example, when you are trying to create loads for web applications, if it's not TruClient, you need to find and analyze every call: What the HTTP request is, and what the other kinds of requests are that we need to call, and then correlate all the correlation identifiers. All of that is taken care of by TruClient and other protocols. That is actually very beneficial across all the platforms. For example, a SAP application might be tested for mobile. We can use a combination of the SAP protocol and TruClient protocol. The combinations are very helpful for performance testing.

LoadRunner Cloud gives you a lot of options, even for multi-browser or multi-device testing. It has been the main tool that can do everything; complete end-to-end performance testing.

The support for large-scale testing is also an important feature in our operations. We have thousands of users and it provides the best solution. You can have an unlimited number of users, although you would need to pay for them, but that's a different story. In our organization, the maximum number of users is currently about 20,000 to 30,000. It's a one-stop solution. I can configure my load on the cloud environment and have 30,000 virtual users on the cloud. I don't need to create the infrastructure locally and I don't have to maintain it. Everything is taken care of by the solution.

In addition, its ability to run unlimited concurrent tests without worrying about hardware availability helps eliminate hardware dependency. You don't need to have the load generators on your network. You don't need to maintain those systems and you don't need to have that kind of network capability. If you're testing on-prem, but you don't have the network capacity to scale up to millions of users, LoadRunner Cloud enables you to create virtual networks and use the cloud to generate those kinds of loads. You can then analyze what the impact will be to your system when you have millions of users. LoadRunner Cloud is the best way to do that.

When it comes to the CI pipeline, there were some limitations initially, but the latest version of LoadRunner is very helpful. They can integrate into the CI/CD pipeline. We are trying to put it into a complete CI/CD pipeline, but there are still some challenges when you try to run it through different protocols. The challenges are around how you can containerize applications. There are some limitations to some protocols, such as desktop. And when it comes to database testing, there are some things that we can't do through CI/CD.

For CI/CD, the previous versions may not be the right ones, but the latest version is definitely a step ahead. We are aiming for 100 percent, but we have achieved around 60 to 70 percent in CI/CD. Still, it's very good to have that capability.

Also, it would be helpful if Loadrunner Cloud had the same kind of enterprise environment where we had multiple models and options while creating the load profile. Not all the options are available in the LoadRunner Cloud. If they could be added, it would be good.

I've been using a LoadRunner solution for more than 10 years as part of my performance testing.

The efficiency of the scalability is a 10 out of 10. I have used multiple tools and LoadRunner is the best one in terms of efficiency. When it comes to cost-effectiveness of the scalability, I would give it an eight out of 10. Even though it's cloud, and you can have thousands of users, we are paying in the tens of thousands. It's not so cost-effective for a university like ours. We still have to justify why we need to spend so much money every financial year.

I have used OpenText technical support a couple of times and they have been very supportive. They're good.

The only problem with setup is that there might be some problems with the firewalls, configuring SSH and other things. We were initially using OpenText SiteScope but we had some issues getting all the metrics. With New Relic and Dynatrace, we stopped using SiteScope. Other than that, we didn't have any issues. It's pretty straightforward. You install LoadRunner, configure your virtual users, and create the environment.

Our initial deployment of the on-prem solution took a week to get everything done, including setting up the firewall, configuration files, and the protocols. The migration to Loadrunner Cloud is nothing. You can start triggering whatever code you had on-prem in the cloud. There really isn't any migration involved. It's pretty straightforward.

We have definitely seen return on our investment with Loadrunner Cloud. As I noted, we used to have many load generators and they are no longer used. That is saving us about $30,000. And Loadrunner costs 50 percent of what it used to cost us to run the same test in the cloud. We don't need a Windows Server license anymore or networking capabilities specifically for testing. Those are the kinds of savings we have seen from moving to the cloud.

Also, in the past, we used to write code. But with TruClient, while you need a performance tester, you don't need a programmer to write scripting. If you know the system, and if you know the objectives of performance testing, you can do the performance tests. No programming skills are needed. That also gives us leverage. We can use someone with performance testing capabilities, even though he might not be the best programmer. That has also reduced our costs by $10,000 a year.

I have extensively used JMeter as a performance testing tool. JMeter is free and also enables codeless scripting. Even without coding you can try running scripts. But where there is no comparison between JMeter and LoadRunner is when it comes to distributing load. LoadRunner stands out. With JMeter, it's very difficult to distribute the load. 

When it comes to creating reports, Loadrunner is best. You will spend most of your time analyzing what's happened with the test, analyzing bottlenecks and pain points with the performance parameters. But in JMeter, you have to manually collect everything: collate the results and produce the reports. Then you need to do a detailed analysis to find the bottlenecks and resource patterns. It is very difficult, but it's free. If you have the skill set and the time, you can use JMeter. But if you are time-constrained, and you want to actually concentrate on performance testing, use LoadRunner.

LoadRunner Cloud provides application performance and management tools to an extent, but not to the extent of New Relic or Splunk. We predominantly use New Relic to monitor application performance and in some cases we use Dynatrace as well. But LoadRunner Cloud doesn't have complete application performance monitoring metrics.

LoadRunner's Developer integration enables developers to script and run tests without leaving the developer ecosystem. It gives a complete IDE where you can develop the code and add your script. For example, if you are using a Java platform to code, and it has all the libraries and the IDE, you can integrate your load testing into your development. For us, because we don't have a single development cycle or ecosystem—we constantly move to various methods—that's where the IDE has limitations. It supports certain languages but it doesn't support everything. If we are using Go, for example, we might need to add certain libraries, so that's where it isn't helpful. But if you are purely on Java or core platforms, it will definitely help.

The Developer integration enables developers to add performance testing to their day-to-day tasks, but shift-left depends on your company's development strategy. If your whole culture supports shift-left, so that your quality assurance is embedded from the start of the development cycle, then shift-left works out. But in our case, we use a lot of packaged applications like Workday or SAP where we don't have much opportunity to work with their code. We do a lot of configurations and integrations. In that case, shift-left doesn't work as well. But whether you follow shift-left or shift-right, Loadrunner Cloud works.

For non-functional testing, LoadRunner is the best tool. I can recommend it to other people, to create specific tests from the smallest load to the highest level of load. I don't think any other commercial tool has that capability to create load performance testing. There is no other tool that gives this kind of experience for a load-testing professional. From end-to-end, starting from creating the load scenarios, to running them, and then reporting, LoadRunner is the best tool. You save a lot of time and, with LoadRunner Cloud, you are saving a lot of money. Go for it.

We used Load Runner Cloud particularly to do spike testing. 

The license is built such that it can be used across the entire year. The flexibility to use it across multiple applications for the year for various concurrencies and time periods works well for us.

The TCO has been optimized along with the total ROI. The product, being a part of the Gartner magic quadrant, helps score against some of the open-source products out there. This helps as there are certain regulators who look at technology adoption that is a part of the Gartner magic quadrant.

We used Load Runner Cloud particularly to do spike testing and it was great. 

The license can be used across the entire year. They make it flexible so that we can use it across multiple applications throughout the year for various concurrencies and time periods.

The TCO has been optimized along with the total ROI. 

The product being is part of the Gartner magic quadrant and scores well against open-source products. This helps us with certain regulators who look at technology adoption.

There are two features that I would want MicroFocus to work on.

1. It should have a feature to report with a 99.9 percentile success rate.

2. We should be creating a performance dashboard with InfluxDB OR ElasticSearch integration with Micro Focus Cloud LR. We need Micro Focus Cloud LR to send feeds to InfluxDB OR ElasticSearch for each run for:

1) Realtime PT result publishing
2) Trending between runs
3) Data mashing with Grafana/Chronograf
4) Live alerting

The feed from the Micro Focus Cloud LR instance to InfluxDB should be configured, or an integration touch point should be available for sending real-time feeds into the DBs.

I have been using and supporting Micro Focus LoadRunner Cloud for more than two years now. 

Features like spike testing and load per use are excellent features. Users who are looking at very high concurrency requirements yet need it only for a short interval can use the LR Cloud efficiently. The learning curve is very smooth, and there is enough documentation. 

The solution is used for load performance testing activities.

The product supports a wide variety of technology compared to any other tool.

The product must improve support. The support team provides delayed responses. Many times, there are a lot of conversations between the support team and the technical team without any conclusions.

I have been using the solution for 14 to 15 years.

The tool is not perfectly stable.

Around 30 to 40 people use the tool in our organization.

The installation is not difficult, but it is a pretty lengthy process.

The product must improve its price. The solution’s price is considerably high. It is the highest in the market.

My company decided to use the product due to the technology support it provided. I would recommend the solution to someone with technology that other tools couldn’t support. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.