StresStimulus

Knowing how many users your website can handle is essential, particularly if you wish to prevent it from crashing at the worst possible moments, which is why stress testing is an essential part of the job.

A number of tools are available that can do this task almost hassle free, for you, and one of them is StresStimulus, a streamlined and fairly intuitive application that guides you through the entire process, from start to finish.

In terms of usage, the program does require at least some basic knowledge of the practice, as certain parameters will need to be configured for your website and its specificity.

However, thanks to the provided ‘Test Wizard’, you can rely on a variety of default options and only customize a few essential details, before running it.

When creating a new text case, you firstly need to input its name and select the web browser you wish to use (if applicable, as other options are also available). You then need to define the URL and the preferred browser cache type, with the recording process starting next.

After certain automatic steps are performed, StresStimulus lets you configure the test case, to show or not the targeted hosts, depending on your needs, as well as filter the content type. Subsequently, a verification needs to be run, to ensure that the test is properly set up.

Should no errors be encountered, you can proceed with selecting a load pattern and defining the number of virtual users, test duration and think time, finally being able to execute it, in order to obtain the results and analyze them. These are provided as a summary, but also as graphs or with details.

To conclude, StresStimulus is a comprehensive and reliable piece of software that you can resort to for determining your website’s performance under a heavy load of users, enabling you to optimize it and improve its handling of such situations in real life.