Performance Testing:Online education stress test example

Scenario

An online education website needs to run stress testing on its course selection workflow. The workflow consists of three steps, each with specific requirements:

1. Log on to the online education system

   • Construct login requests with user information, such as usernames and passwords.

   • Pass the user's login information (cookie) to the following View course list and Submit course selection requests.

2. View course list

   Pass the course ID to the Submit course selection request.

3. Submit course selection

   • Use the course ID from the previous request to construct the course submission request.

   • Verify whether the course submission is successful.

The basic setup for the stress testing scenario is as follows.

The session session1 is configured with three active APIs (3/3), all using the POST method: Login, Query, and Submit. These APIs correspond to the logon, course list query, and course selection submission steps.

Step 1: Configure the stress testing scenario

1. Log on to the PTS console, choose Performance Test > Create Scenario, and then click PTS.

2. Add the parameter file to a data source.

   1. Click Data Sources. On the Files tab, click + Upload File and select an on-premises parameter file that you want to upload.

   2. Select Use First Row as Parameter Name. After you select this option, you do not need to specify the parameter names. The data in the first row is used as the parameter names. When PTS reads the parameter file, PTS ignores the data in the first row. If the data in the first row of the parameter file is not parameter names, you must specify a parameter name for each column based on your business scenario.

3. Add a data configuration node.

   1. On the Scenario Settings tab, add a stress testing API, click the drop-down arrow next to Add Instruction, and then select Parameter.

   2. On the Data Source Parameters tab, select existing parameter names.

      Note

      • If you want to use each row only once to assemble requests, select Use Once. When the required data is polled once, the stress testing scenario stops generating new stress testing requests, regardless of the configured load level.

      • If you want to recycle parameters during a stress test, do not select Use Once.

      • You can select Use Once or Baseline Column, but not both for parameters. If you select Use Once, you cannot select Baseline Column.

      

4. Build the API sequence

   1. Configure the login API

      Stress Testing URL: Enter the URL to test. This example uses http://web.example.com/login.

      Request Method: Select POST.

      Body Definition: Set Content-Type to x-www-form-urlencoded. Then, click Text Edit in the upper-right corner of the editing area and enter {"username":"${username}","password":"${password}"}.

      

      Note

      Cookies from the current request, which contain user login information, are automatically shared with other APIs in this stress testing scenario. No manual configuration is needed.

   2. Configure the view course list API

      Click Add API and select HTTP to add a new API node. Then, configure the basic request information.

      • Test URL: Enter the URL to be tested. This example uses http://web.example.com/mocks/online/list.

      • Request method: Select POST.

      To pass a course ID to the next request, you must extract it from the response of the current API as an output parameter. Select the Output Parameter Definition tab and configure it as follows.

      For Output Parameter Name, enter ID. For Source, select Body: JSON. For parsing expression, enter schedule_list[1].ID.

      • Output Parameter Name: Enter a custom parameter name.

      • Source: Select the parsing format for the body, such as JSON.

      • Parsing Expression: Enter a parsing expression based on the response details.

        For example, to extract the second course ID from the following sample response body, set the parsing expression to schedule_list[1].ID.

        {
        "schedule_list": [
        {
        "Name": "math",
        "ID": "001"
        },
        {
        "Name": "english",
        "ID": "002"
        },
        {
        "Name": "science",
        "ID": "003"
        }
        ]
        }                                

        Note

        To define and validate the parsing expression for an output parameter, use the expression debugging feature. After the expression is verified, you can apply it here. For more information, see Debug a scenario.

   3. Configure the submit course selection API

      Click Add API and select HTTP to add a new API node. Then, configure the basic request information.

      • Test URL: Enter the URL to be tested. This example uses http://web.example.com/mocks/online/submit.

      • Request method: Select POST.

      Select the Body Definition tab and use the course ID that you extracted from the previous API in the request Body.

      • Content-Type: Select the x-www-form-urlencoded format.

      • Key: Enter a custom key, for example, ID_from_last_api.

      • Value: Click Parameters in the lower-left corner of the page to view session parameters, such as "ID". Click the copy icon and paste the value into the Value box.

      Select the Output Parameter Definition tab and configure the following settings.

      • Output Parameter Name: Enter a custom parameter name, for example, result.

      • Source: Select a parsing format for the body, for example, Body: TEXT.

        Note

        For the source, set the parsing format of the Body to TEXT. Similarly, you can also use the expression debugging feature in scenario debugging to debug your parsing expression.

      • Parsing Expression: Enter a parsing expression based on the response details. In this example, the response body is result:success, so the parsing expression is result:(.+).

      On the Check Point (Assertion) tab, set a checkpoint for this API to verify whether the course submission is successful.

      • Check Point Type: Select output parameter.

      • Check Object: Select result.

      • Check Condition: Select Equal To.

      • Content to Check: Enter success.

Step 2: Stress Mode Configuration

After building the scenario, select a stress mode and set the load level.

Step 3: Debug and start the scenario

1. Debug the scenario to verify your configuration and prevent test failures. We recommend debugging the scenario first.

2. Click Save and Start. In the Note dialog box, select Execute Now, select the The test is permitted and complies with the applicable laws and regulations. checkbox, and then click Start Test.

Analyze the stress test results

After the stress test ends, the system automatically collects data, such as stress testing scenario metrics, business details, monitoring data, and API sampling logs, to generate a stress test report. You can view the report on the Stress Test Report page. For more information, see View a PTS stress test report.