Optimising application performance tests
Faced with increasing demand for new applications or updates, development cycles are under pressure. They are becoming shorter and shorter, and performance tests designed to validate applications are no exception to the rule. Developers and testers are facing a challenge that is putting them under pressure: producing and testing applications quickly and efficiently. They need to rethink the way they do things. Read all our articles on the challenges of IT supervision.
The tester's bottleneck
Testers used to have 3 months to test applications and give feedback to developers. Today, this back and forth between development and QA has become virtually impossible. Testers often only have half a day to carry out their performance tests. Even if the applications to be tested are not as large as they used to be, everything is moving much faster.
The problem for the tester then becomes: how to avoid becoming a bottleneck in the application development cycle? Agile methods and the V-cycle provide some solutions, but they are not always enough. Applications need to be able to be tested right from the development stage.
Neoload, the monitoring software developed specifically to test the performance of mobile applications, has made this issue its DNA. Neoload enables developers and testers to work in parallel right from the development phase on an application. As a result, exchanges take place in real time and the traditional cycle - development, QA and production phase - is optimised. In this way, the bottleneck for the tester is avoided or at least minimised.
Test as you go
The reduction in the application development cycle is the result of growing market demand. Business teams want their applications faster and faster. As for users, they have very little patience. If an application doesn't perform well, they won't come back to it. So the pressure falls on the developer and then on QA.
This is why methods such as Shift Left and DevOps have been developed: to enable performance tests to be carried out at the start of development, even when phase 1 is underway. And also to break down the barriers that used to exist between those who do the development and those who do the testing. To do this, you need to test an application 's performance right from the start, as closely as possible to the conditions in which it will actually be used.
This is one of Neoload's great strengths: it enables the creation of virtual users to simulate real-life use cases. In this way, testers and developers will be able, for example, to observe the application 's behaviour and response times when several users are connected. Neoload will therefore streamline the development cycle from the outset, enabling technical problems to be identified that would probably not have been identified until very late in the testing phase. Or even only during the production phase.
Pressure from the business
These days, mobile applications need to be updated on a daily or at least weekly basis. E-commerce sites, for example, are obliged to offer their customers new applications on a regular basis. And let's not forget that the application has also become a channel for communicating with users. Marketing campaigns, promotions, etc. are often carried out via this channel.
And these actions are only going to increase in volume and recurrence. Development cycles, which are already very tight, will soon be even tighter. They will be virtually just-in-time. The development-as-you-go approach will therefore play an essential role in the deployment of future applications.
It will enable problems to be identified earlier. It will therefore automatically help to reduce development costs by preventing, for example, an unsuitable application from reaching the QA stage and being rejected. To achieve this, you need to be able to easily create and design numerous test scripts. This is what Neoload offers, thanks to its dynamic, easy-to-use interface.
The various scenarios in the client path can be quickly integrated and made available to everyone. Thanks to this functionality, more tests can be created more quickly. This will enable continuous validation of the application's performance. What's more, the reporting system offered by Neoload is presented in the form of easy-to-read results, enabling rapid corrective action to be taken.
Faced with pressure from the market, the development cycle for a mobile application is set to become even shorter. Developers and testers will have even less time to optimise the performance of applications before they go into production. They will therefore need to exchange information very early on in the process and work together on every stage of development. This is how they will be able to continue to deliver applications that offer the best user experience.
Article translated from French