Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Performance Load Testing For Nonprofit Websites - Tips & Tricks

You need to put your website through a lot of tests that will tell you how much it is capable of handling. You have a lot of things that need to be done just to know your site will work when you have your first few visitors. You will learn things about your site that you did not know, and you will find out what it will take to bring your site to the next level if it is not performing the way you want today.

The load testing you do is pretty important because you have to know what your site will look like when it has many people on it, and you want the person who does all the testing to tell you what it was like while they were on the site. This will give you a lot of chances to figure out how you will make changes to the site, and you will keep upgrading all the times that you are doing the tests (like the tests provided by Dotcom-Monitor).

Load testing is great for people who are trying to learn how to manage their sites better, or it is good for a business that just started and needs to know what kind of capacity they have. You will have no idea until the work has been done, and you need to think pretty hard about how you plan to do this once you are getting results back.

You can order some tests today, and you can wait for your first set of results to see what you have to do next to get what you need. You can move on from there to get more things that will help you make your site even better, and you will learn fast that you have all the control over the situation because you are the one who is reading the results every day at the end of the day. Call the testing company today, and they will show you how to get this done in a lot of different ways that will be easy for you to manage when you are starting your site.

As mentioned above, performance testing is very important for nonprofit sites as well because they often don't have access to the same resources as commercial sites. You can read more about the optimization of non-profit websites and web hosting at webhostingbuddy.com/non-profit-web-hosting-guide, and and also here causevox.com/blog/measure-nonprofit-website-performance/

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

How Can I Improve the Speed of My Website?

Well, you wanted to start an online business, congrats on getting there. Now, we have to make sure it can handle your customer volume. Moreover, nothing will earn you a disgruntled customer faster than a slow loading, or error generating experience. Today we will cover why the slow loading, the 404-errors, or the 500-errors can occur.



Stressed out webpage

This sounds odd to say, but this can happen, and happen quite frequently throughout the internet. Essentially, what happens is that too many people are accessing your page, or pages and the server simply cannot keep up. Therefore, the computer will display a generic error page (server error 500), or a 404 page not found error, as this means the server could not provide in a timely manner the next page. The result winds up being your customer's transaction declining, or a page failing to load on request. Either way, your customer will feel frustrated, and may lose faith in your company, site, or products.

Giving your site a stress test

For anyone who has ever had an echocardiogram this will be exactly the same thing for your site. Except in this case, the treadmill is going to be the simulated website hits, and other traffic essentially trying to see if you can make the website error. Most shopping carts, as well as from a website design side, are meant to withstand up to 100 concurrent users.

To test you could as cited in one example have 25 virtual users randomly browse the site, 25 more accessing the shopping cart, while 25 users remain logged in, and 25 virtual users are returning to your site to resume a purchase or browsing. This will test the site with 100 users, and while this is one test, you can adjust these numbers should your volume be higher than 100 customers for a certain time of day.



Results of the stress test

The results are in, and now you may have medicate your site. When the results come back, and they will come back in a pass or fail, now is the time to act. If your site failed to handle 100 customers you are going to want to discuss that with your web host, or your IT Manager immediately so that you can better manage your load balance for your site. Additionally, once you adjust the settings, re-run the load testing, and if that comes back pass, that is a win. One final thing to remember when running the stress testing is there is not one test right for every company. You will have to base this on your current or projected volume. 

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Load Testing – Why Every Website Owner Should Do It

Load testing can be said to be one of the most effective methods for any website owner to figure out if they will have customers. It is a good way to know if the website will be delivering what the visitors want. Failing to pre-test a system leaves the site owner in darkness over how well the website will perform. It helps to understand the processes and what the clients get when they visit that site.




Analyzing performance


Any site owner is interested in knowing the performance of their website. The performance can only be understood and analyze if a variety of domains and processes in the site are familiar. With load testing, the site owner can know when the website is failing by how well it reacts to a crowd of customers accessing it.



Meeting demands

By not understanding the requirements of clients visiting the site I will not be able to meet their needs. Hence I have to have tested the websites that I can identify what is the demand by my customers. Load testing functions this way; it helps analyze performance before even the website is on the market for the customers. By testing, it is easy to monitor the performance of the site.



Dealing with Competition


If the site owner looks forward to competing with others in the market, they have to know how their website will perform in the market. Competition, in this case, is by high-speed processing, quick replies and response on the first click. Load testing tests all theses with tools, n network server performance, and high-speed connection. It helps the website owner learn how to attract more clients to the site through better performance.





Security


It is not easy to know if a site is safe unless load testing is done. Load testing puts the owner in the customers’ position, and they can ensure that the site will stay online and there won't be any performance bottlenecks that could lead to security problems (you can find additional information about that online).



New Creations


When doing load testing, there is a probability of getting new ideas for the website that will attract more people to the site. The insights can be missed if load testing is not done and the site owner misses important factors that could lead to improved system performance.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

What are the Differences Between Load Testing and Stress Testing?

Information technology includes all the items it takes to make a computer operation work. It includes network resources, computer hardware, software, services and any management packages it takes to make it all efficient. Infrastructure also has a biological component known as humans known as developers, designers, network administrators, and end users. Once set up maintenance becomes a core issue. Two main checking points exist that check on the IT infrastructure which are load testing and stress testing.




Load Testing



In an information technology infrastructure everything is in flux. At times the amount of packets, users, and programs running can take up most the circuitry for a prolonged period of time. An information technology system down means loss in money. A team needs to know if the system can take the daily grind. Load testing became developed as a process to check a system under routine use. Routine use for IT defines as:
  • Having multiple applications running
  • Downloading a large load of files
  • Checking how the system reacts if outside sources such as emails come in



Two components exist that checks this. The first called a longevity test has the system handle a routine workload for an extended period of time. The second lists as volume testing where intentional spikes are introduced into the workload for a short period of time. After viewing the data modifications are made to ensure the system stays functional.





Stress Testing



Stress testing begins the same way as load testing. Where the difference occurs is the amount. Stress testing loads the infrastructure to the extreme. High volumes of requests with no pause between. The test continues until an outage occurs in a section. Then contingency plans are prepared for if it happens in real life. How many ways can the system parts be rerouted and still work? What load can it take when certain sectors are not available? Keeping a system up and running means the money continues to flow in. If money flows in, then infrastructure can become fixed. Stress testing can also be a great source of information when it comes to understanding your performance bottlenecks.



What ever service used to check the infrastructure make sure to schedule these types of testings to keep the infrastructure at optimal functioning. It makes for an easier work life.