Load testing web applications that use Flash animations
Today we have received this typical question: “I’m trying to find a load testing product which would allow me to load test flash applications. I’ve tried webserver stress tool 7 and it doesn’t seem to enable me to simulate usage of a flash application. Can you tell me if this can be done, and if so, how? ”
The answer is a straight well….. yes.
You may not be able to find any testing tool that is actually able to simulate hundreds or thousands of active flash applications to perform a load test on a webserver.
The reasons are:
- All Flash animations are so different and need different activity by the user. That’s hard to simulate
- There are sheer CPU power problems: Simulating so many flash animations is really hard to do. It is already complex to simulate HTTP requests from hundreds or even thousands of users.
But: When it comes to testing the server there is another perspective. The server perspective. The server does not care where HTTP requests come from, from a browser, an AJAX application or a flash application. It only cares for the HTTP requests that come in, processes them and sends back the results.
So all you need is to find out what HTTP URLs your clients send back to the server. Then feed these URLs into testing tool like Webserver Stress Tool and run your test.
But: Unfortunately there is no easy way to get this URL list…. The built-in URL recorder of Webserver Stress Tool works fine with simple web front ends. But as soon as more than one pop up, several frames, AJAX features or Flash are used the recorder hits its limits. The solution is to use an HTTP logging proxy.
More on this topic in our knowledgebase.