PXlite is a diagnostic tool for performance related problems. It enables simple and easy load and performance testing for your website. With only a few clicks on a regular web browser, you can launch a full blown load test for your website.
PXlite is fully automatic, from script creation through test execution and report generation. It takes only about 10 minutes to set up the test.
PXlite users do not need any scripting knowledge. It automatically generates a JMeter test-script for the load and a Selenium script for user-experience monitoring. This is all transparent for PXlite users.
Once you execute the test, dedicated virtual servers will launch in one of four global locations (California, Virginia, Ireland or Singapore). These servers will simulate up to several thousand real Internet users browsing through a set of landing pages under a your load scenario of choice such as load, stress, or extreme stress scenario.
Upon completion, a graphical report is automatically generated.
Choose a set of landing pages that will participate in the test and the delay between each page request.
You can include up to six landing pages.
You need to specify the delay in seconds between each page request.
Each simulated user will call one page at a time from the list of landing pages. The user will pause for the specified delay between each page request.
Instead of scripting your load scenario, you can choose one of the automatic scenarios provided by PXlite. Each scenario can provide intelligence about your website performance.
Each load scenario is different in the users ramp-up time and the continuous load after the ramp-up period.
Ramp-up time is the time it takes for users to ramp up from zero to the maximum capacity. The ramp-up time has a high influence over the website performance as the action of spawning a new thread/process to deal with a new user is very expensive in terms of resources.
A web server uses threads/processes to deal with incoming requests. It usually starts out with a number of threads and spawns new threads when required up to a limit. All these are included in the web server configuration. Bad configuration or insufficient resources can cause the web server not to react fast enough to new requests.
For example, imagine having a TV campaign that encourages users to go to your website at a specific time. At that time your website can experience heavy traffic with-in a short period of time. This is a stress scenario, where users are ramping up from zero to a high volume in a short period of time.
If you just want to test your website under a load scenario than you do not want a short ramp-up period as it can overwhelm your server.
Choose one of four global geographic locations from which the load will originate. At present we support East & West USA, Europe and Singapore.
Embedded resources include all CSSs, JSs, Images and other resources that are part of a landing page. By downloading all embedded resources of each landing page, the response time of each landing page will be the total sum of response times for all embedded resources.
Disable this option if you want a request to be made only to the URL of the landing page and not to retrieve the embedded resources.
For example in case you are using a Content Distribution Network or smart caching of any sort for the static content, you should disable this option.
If you don't know if this is important to you or not, ignore it altogether.
Before running a load test on a website which is in a capacity greater than 50 users, we need first to make sure that you are the owner of this website. For obvious reasons we cannot allow to run a high capacity load test on a website owned by someone else.
To ensure website ownership, we require that you put a simple html file named performancexpert.html at the top level path of your website.
For example, if you are testing http://www.example.com/landing/page, a URL of the name: http://www.example.com/performancexpert.html must exist.
This action provides us with a proof that you are the owner of the website and therefore can run a load test on it.
Prior to running the load, we automatically check the availability of this file at all the domains specified in the test. If this check returns a false value on any domain, the load test will not run.
If for some reason you are unable to do so, please contact us and we will authenticate you and allow the tests to run.
A sample test (a test of up to 10 users) does not require these security/ownership measures and can run without the file being present on the domains under test.
Once you save the test you can start it by pressing on the Start link.
Once the test has started, please follow the instructions that appear on the page. The instructions will basically tell you to do nothing. After few minutes the reports will appear.
There is no hurry, as the test takes about 40 minutes to execute and the reports need some data to accumulate before they can generate.
You can stop a test using the emergency stop menu item. Using this menu item will immediately stop the test. If not used, it will take the test about 40 minutes to complete and stop.
A report will be available once the test is stopped.
Few minutes after the test has started, reports will begin to appear. Completed reports will be available only after it has ended.
Reports are generated in real time.
There are two types of reports:
- Aggregated Reports
- Detailed Reports
Aggregated Reports
Aggregated reports present various distributions of response times, latencies and errors throughout the entire test. These reports can draw the entire picture in a single snapshot.
Aggregated Reports include:
- Two graphs: Response time distribution by percentage from the entire test and according to the number of samples
- Two graphs: Latency distribution by percentage from the entire test and according to the number of samples
- Two graphs: Error/Response Code distribution by percentage from the entire test and according to the number of samples
- One graph: Throughput distribution
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Detailed Reports
Detailed reports present the average value of each measure per minute throughout the entire test.
Measures include:
- Response time
- Latency
- Hits per minute
- Number of concurrent users (Active Threads)
- Errors
- Throughput (in Kilobytes)
There is one view for all URLs that were included in the test and detailed views for each unique URL.
Detailed reports include:
- Response Time and Latency Vs Users
- Response Time and Latency Vs Hits
- Response Time and Latency Vs Errors
- Response Time and Latency Vs Throughput
- Hits Vs Users
- Hits Vs Errors
- Hits Vs Throughput
To see an example of a live reports screen, please visit our demo section.
If you wish to see a different type of report, contact us and let us know.
During the load the system launches real browsers and log all measures as perceived by these browsers.
This report includes measures that reflect the page load time as perceived by a real browser. This metric represents the user experience. In particular the time it takes a real browser to load a certain page during the test.
Perceived user experience provides an answer to only one very important question:
Q: What would be the user experience under a certain load scenario?
This page includes a detailed report for each landing page.
Click here to see a live report page. Click here to see another one.
This report includes a detailed list of all errors found during the load test. For each error the following is presented:
- Time-stamp
- Elapsed time
- Label
- Response code
- Response message
- Failure message
PXlite is only one of the software services provided by CloudIntelligence. Feel free to contact us if you are interested in one of the following services:
ScriptFactory
If the simple automatic script provided by PXlite does not provide an answer to your requirements, we can create a proprietary script for you. For example, if you need log-in, POST requests, Ajax or web services as part of your script, please contact us and we will create one for you according to your specifications. We can even record your browser activities and simulate the recorded actions as a propriety script.
PXpro
PerformanceXpert professional edition, designed for professional use, is equipped with a self-service platform and advanced scripting capabilities leveraging JMeter and Selenium.
You can create proprietary test scripts and load scenarios using a graphical web environment. PXpro offers web-based test management, archiving, repository, cloud-based monitoring, rich scripting language, and supports HTTP, HTTPS, web-services, XML, TCP, SQL, Login and more.
PXpro enables you to write test-scripts using JMeter and Selenium and execute them on a distributed load testing environment. The environment is pre-configured, ready to use and available at all times.
With PXpro, all you need is to write the test-scripts, choose the amount of load-engines and run the test. The system takes care of the everything else. Unlimited number of load-engines are pre-configured and available at your disposal. Detailed graphical reports are generated during the load.
If you are not familiar with Selenium and do not wish to create a Selenium test-script, the system can generate one for your programmatically based on landing pages you provide.
PXpro was previously named JMeter in the Cloud.
* All of the above mentioned services require an additional fee
