SymbioLoad provides real-world performance testing, scalability assessment, and capacity planning for Web applications inside and outside the firewall. The SymbioLoad architecture consists of distributed test agents located at the edge of the network and a central test management module that helps set up, execute, and manage the entire test process, stores test resources, and displays real-time reports. LoadModeler's Internet Edition platform can be accessed through a standard browser from anywhere across the network.

The SymbioLoad Hosted Edition is a Web-based platform that works off SymbioWare's global network and needs no additional hardware and software to provide distributed load testing from a standard browser.

The SymbioLoad module also available in SymbioTeam On-Site Enterprise Edition that lives on the corporate Intranet and provides distributed, real-world load testing of applications deployed inside the firewall.

Multiple levels of concurrent users

Load tests can be selected at multiple levels of concurrent users to address varying needs of individual Web applications and test plans.

Easy test scheduling and execution

SymbioLoad's scheduling engine easily sets up customized load tests of variable duration through the Web-based set-up process. At the scheduled time, the load generation automatically starts after the security validations have been performed.

Real-world scenario testing through distributed load simulation

Concurrent real users are created from the edge of the network, effectively mirroring real-life traffic scenarios, which helps you understand and address the effect of concurrent users accessing a Web-based application. In addition to traditional load test reports, detailed data on location and backbone performance allows deeper analysis of application performance under real-life conditions.

Multiple user behavior simulation in each test

To accurately create live traffic conditions, each load test can incorporate multiple types of business transactions interacting simultaneously with the target server system. These business transactions can represent the most common behaviors expected from users of the application. Each user behavior is recorded as a sequence of steps in a test case. During the test execution, each test case is executed from selected locations specified during test set up.

User-driven tests

The SymbioLoad Web Recorder allows automatic generation of test cases, which can be directly executed from the SymbioLoad test agent locations. The recorder is a Windows-based application, which captures the sequence of browser clicks constituting a transaction or business process and translates that sequence into a plain English test case. The tests can be further customized with special functions such as checkpoints, user think times, and variable specifications for data-driven testing (e.g., simulating unique user profiles in the test process). Once the test case is uploaded to the SymbioLoad servers, load tests can be scheduled and set up directly from the Web server.

Comprehensive reporting and analysis

Real-time graphical and tabular report formats provide a detailed view of server and application performance under load conditions. An executive summary report provides a condensed view of the most important test results. Detailed reports are available on response times (for each test and location), business transaction summaries (passes and failures for each transaction), server metrics and failure analysis.