Experience Robust Load Testing and a Lower TCO Using LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst Capability

In today’s digital economy, optimal application performance is non-negotiable; companies who don’t deliver it will find themselves racing to catch up to their competition. However, many organizations are challenged to implement the necessary load testing practices in an efficient, cost-effective manner. Micro Focus has solved this issue with the introduction of LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst capability. 

Organizations often don’t budget for load testing correctly because they only factor the cost of the load testing software and a portion of the hardware. In addition to these “hard costs,” organizations need to factor in the expense of having people from the DevOps, testing, security, and other teams stand ready to manually connect, maintain, and run load testing efforts. These manual configurations cost time and money and can also lead to scheduling bottlenecks. Additionally, depending on their testing requirements, some organizations need to have their load generators on “hot standby” – ready to conduct a load test at moment’s notice. A machine running 24x7x365 requires an ongoing financial investment, resulting in additional expenditure. 

To manage expenses, IT teams often use a low-cost option or open source. These types of solutions are not user friendly and require a skilled resource to spend a significant amount of time writing scripts and debugging them. They also need to manually design, build, and test the environment prior to executing the “real load test.” These inexpensive solutions can cost organizations more money in the end.  

LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst empowers you to dynamically provision and de-provision load generators on the cloud. It provides you with load generators on demand without having to manage complex infrastructures. IT teams can ultimately shift from a CapEx model to a more cost-efficient, pay-as-you-go OpEx model. 

You may be thinking, “This sounds great but what about scalability and flexibility?” We’ve covered that too! With LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst, you can select load generators from any location worldwide. For example, you can have a load generator coming in from the west coast, another one from the east coast, and a third one coming from the San Paolo, Brazil – all seamlessly connected and ready to run. Rather than have a resource manually start and stop load generators from all these locations, you can manage all your testing activities, as well as CloudBursting functionality, through LoadRunner Enterprise’s toolbar. 

Following is an example of the cost benefits that could be seen by an organization using LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst.  

In our experience working with clients in the public sector, it might be necessary to build and execute true Client Virtual Users (30 users per load generator) for their specific load testing requirements including simulating 3,000 users accessing the system under test concurrently. This could require them to always have 100 load generators ready and available during testing. 

As part of previous tests, a company may have virtual machines (VMs) for the load generators on standby at a monthly cost of approximately $2,000 per Load Generator. As a result, the client would be spending approximately $200,000 per month or $2.4 million per year for this capability.  

By leveraging LoadRunner Enterprise with CloudBurst, this organization could potentially reduce their capital outlay for load generators to approximately $24,000 per year, depending on the number of test iterations.   

With LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst, you can quickly, easily, and affordably start and stop load tests from any location. Micro Focus offers a subscription model that lets you manage costs by paying only for what you use. For example, with LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst companies can purchased virtual users by the hour/by protocol as CloudBurst hourly credits are one-time consumption licenses. They can consume those Virtual User Hours (VUHs) as needed over days, weeks or months.  

Above is an example of the number of Vusers on each LG and how many consumed by a protocol.  

You can observe all the activity being performed automatically for you, via the LRE CloudBurst dashboard.

Learn more about the Micro Focus LoadRunner Enterprise CloudBurst here. 

For additional information, contact your Secure and Non-Secure representative. 

Robert L. Linton is a Business Consultant (ADM) for MFGS, Inc., a Master Supplier of Micro Focus’ best-in-class portfolio of enterprise-grade scalable software solutions to the U.S. Government, its partners, and system integrators. Robert has over 20 years of experience in automated quality assurance performance testing across many industries including government.