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Performance testers face a number of problem situations and areas during load and performance testing, the resolution of which entails organizational and quantitative effort. A variety of operations and steps must be carried out on different test computers in order to plan and execute performance tests. Many test machines, test components and test applications must be set up, and load generation and data collection programs must be started. Often, this requires time-intensive manual intervention. The complexity and variety of individual operations makes it difficult to transfer knowledge in such environments. TAPE assists in load and performance testing with the following features:

Tools under one roof
Very often, a combination of different tools need to be used during load and performance testing. It makes sense to bring these tools under one roof with TAPE, where measurement results can be centrally stored and correlated. This helps the performance tester to avoid handling errors and save time.

Automation of complex test runs
Using TAPE, complex test runs with dependencies between scripts and tools can be easily automated by defining the sequence of execution of scripts and tools. Test programs and tools are integrated in one place and all performance testing steps and operations are centrally configured through TAPE. TAPE allows the performance tester to define test sequences with status-driven steps that are to be executed across several test computers.

Avoiding manual copying
It is still common practice to manually copy scripts or programs to target computers in the test environment before each test run for manual registration and execution. All logs need to be copied back after testing. Use of TAPE dramatically expedites this process without manual intervention.
In this manner, TAPE facilitates the automated sequential execution of tools during performance and load testing.

TAPE permits the integration of the following types of testing tools.

• conventional load generation tools (both commercial and open source)
• roprietary tools and scripts (batch, database, etc.)
• independent monitoring and control tools

Integration is based on a defined interface and executable software components (wrappers) that control the actual tools and scripts.
Complex test scenarios can be specified and automated using TAPE, and time-intensive operations such as manually copying files or tools to test computers, starting and stopping applications, and analyzing results can be performed within TAPE. Test cases defined in TAPE can be re-executed with minimal effort.

The post-processing of test results can be very costly under certain circumstances since program-specific data and measurement results (log files, measured data etc.) are found to be distributed in multiple formats across various test computers. TAPE facilitates a faster and more effective analysis of test results.

Templates
Test results can be easily and rapidly analyzed using predefined templates. Graphs and reports provide instantaneous insight into trends in test results.

TAPE is constantly in learning mode
TAPE saves and “learns” key performance indicators at the technical and functional level with every test run. Succeeding test runs can be fine-tuned using TAPE, since TAPE directly accesses performance-related problem events from the previous analysis and treats these as new supplementary requirements. This saves time in tuning and leads to a broad understanding of the performance vulnerabilities and hot spots in the application under test.

TAPE includes four fields of operation (perspectives), ensuring complete coverage of all load and performance testing activities. These cover the gamut of workflow activities in load and performance testing, from the definition of test cases and test sequences to scheduling, analysis, test management and monitoring. TAPE itself is very easy and intuitive to use in these areas.

For reasons of cost, it often happens that the same test environments or test components must be used in common across multiple projects. When resources are simultaneously shared across multiple tests, there is always the possibility of undesirable side-effects distorting test results and rendering them useless.

Cross-project scheduling
A cross-project scheduler allows test schedules to be defined and test components to be allocated. Time overlaps and resource conflicts are detected and unnecessary runs prevented.

TAPE automatically executes the scheduled test runs even outside regular working hours, optimizing the effective use of the test environment.

Test cases defined in one project phase can be easily carried over to the next project phase. This makes it easy to execute regression tests in different testing stages with direct comparisons of tests across stages. This also allows the effort for test activities in a release to be accurately estimated, since data for tests already executed in TAPE can be used as a reference point.