We have worked with UK and international clients to successfully test the effectiveness and efficiency of application environments using HP's (formally Mercury Interactive's) industry standard load and stress testing tool, LoadRunner. We are procifient in Loadrunner and its associated test planning and execution tool, Quality Center. In addition to load and stress testing, we are also able to provide functional testing services using HP's Quick Test Professional tool.

Load and stress testing using LoadRunner is a multi-stage process. Firstly, test consultants liaise with business analysts, software developers and application users to define and write detailed, parameterised test scripts using LoadRunner's VUGen scripting tool. In parallel, capacity planning activities determine peak workload (day- and night-time). Then, carefully defined test scenarios are created in the Controller tool. Potentially involving multiple computers, the majority of which act as load generators, the tests are then run and performance statistics recorded. The final phase involves analysis of these statisics, interpretation of bottlenecks and presentation of results to management.

Quality Center, previously called Test Director, is an important HP test management tool.

We have carried out such functional and non-functional testing on a spectrum of Windows, UNIX and Linux servers, web servers and back end databases.

Our test consultants are also able to advise on a number of other performance testing toolsets including Borland SilkPerformer and the IBM Rational Suite.

We find our extensive software development experience and database knowledge to be a great asset in any testing assignment. Our technical director has substantial previous experience of database benchmarking in North America and has also sat on the Transaction Processing and Performance Council (TPPC), which has been responsible for the definition of the various TPC benchmarks.

Contact our Testing Manager at testing@abl.co.uk for more information about our testing services. Alternatively, use our online facility to request more information.