Performance Engineering for an Educational Software Provider

Published 7th January 2009

The company creates products and services that develop learning and communication skills, in particular science and technology-based solutions. The products are used in educational institutions worldwide intended to ensure the needs of the students are met through achievable goals. These products are supported by a backbone of software that must perform various functions whilst supporting a high number of users simultaneously, challenging the performance of the product. To evade any such possible performance related issues, the company chose AppLabs, repute for its extensive experience in defining, planning and monitoring the performance of applications and its significant experience in testing e-learning solutions.

AppLabs identified various issues with the software and offered solutions on how to overcome the potential problems. To manage the product being used by concurrent users, AppLabs employed freeware automation software tool Auto IT for simulating user interactions. 200 client machines were set-up and configured in AppLabs’ performance testing center in Lindon, UT. The environment was configured to simulate a real-life environment similar to that of the client’s customers’ locations (i.e. schools etc).

The solution provided by AppLabs made the products absolutely robust and flawless, with a high user level. One such suggestion was, replacing the original single processor to a dual-processor, which made the product easily usable to concurrent users, and further helped in lowering the memory utilization; implementing the suggestions it was observed that the maximum network throughput across all the load tests was 0.76 MB/ which meant that bandwidth was no longer a constraint.

Read the complete Project Example visit http://www.applabs.com/html/PerformanceEngineeringforaScientificLearningOrganization_613.html