Load Impact

New site update!

New features - configurable time zones, speed-accuracy setting for tests

Today we installed Load Impact 1.4.1 on the site. This little update contains a number of bug fixes and a couple of nice, new features.

* Speed-Accuracy

The perhaps most visible change is that test configurations now have a "Speed-Accuracy" setting that can be toggled to get either a more accurate or a faster test. When a test is left to run for a long time, it collects more data and that means the results from the test will be more accurate. We have from the start wanted to make load testing more fun and interactive, and so we have prioritized speed mostly. To also cater to the users who don't mind waiting a bit in order to get as accurate results as possible, we have now introduced this new "Speed-Accuracy" setting in the advanced test configuration settings. What this setting actually does, is control how many times a load script is repeated during a test.

Premium users are the only ones who have access to the two highest accuracy settings. These settings make tests run extra long, thus consuming more server resources than quicker tests do.

* Configurable time zones

It is now, finally, possible to set your own time zone! Click the "My account" link at the top of the page when logged in, to go to your account settings. There you will now see an option to set your time zone, which will affect all date/time displays for your user and let you view the time in your time zone of choice, rather than CET (Central European Time) that used to be forced on all our users.

* Timeouts

We have also modified the way test timeouts are set. Earlier, they were set at fixed values (for example, a test at an individual load level could only run for max 300 seconds before timing out), but now they are calculated through a combination of analysis of the load script, and the new Speed-Accuracy setting for the test. This should result in fewer timeouts for people who are running large recorded tests.

20,000 load tests!

Yesterday, on the 10th of June, we executed our 20,000th load test!

Going from zero to 20,000 load tests in just six months of operation is an achievement we're very proud of, and we think it makes us pretty unique. It is, as far as we know, an activity level that is at least an order of magnitude larger than any other load testing service have ever experienced.

Right now we are in fact seeing a burst of activity due to a just published blog article listing good tools for web developers - it has generated a lot of traffic since it was published a couple of days ago, and resulted in about 1,000 load tests being executed per day the last couple of days.

What about our users? We have run all these load tests on behalf of an unknown number of end users out there, as many tests are run anonymously. A guess would be that anywhere between 5,000 and 15,000 people have used our service so far. Pretty good for something that has hardly been advertised.

Our focus now lies on improving the service, adding features and improving usability. We listen intently to suggestions and comments from our userbase, and urge you to tell us what you would like to see in a future version of Load Impact. What would make you use the service more?

Thank you all for your support and good luck with the testing!

New site update - Introducing day passes!

Try out a Load Impact premium account from as low as $9

Today, we performed a site update that held two major changes:

1. We introduced a new type of account - the day pass - that lets you try out the premium Load Impact account levels without signing up for any recurring subscription. For a low, one-time fee you can buy 24 hours of access to the three premium account levels (BASIC, PROFESSIONAL and ADVANCED). The BASIC day pass costs only $9!

2. We replaced Paypal as our payment provider, and are instead now using the provider Auriga and a more integrated payment system that means we can handle upgrades, downgrades and other transitions more easily.

Read more about the new account options here: https://loadimpact.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=94

10,000 load tests!

Load Impact today performed its 10,000th load test!

At the time of writing, 10,110 tests have been run on our load testing platform since it went live in december. That means an average of almost 100 load tests per day since we started. Recently, one of the biggest players in the online load testing segment - Soasta - announced they ran their 500th load test since they started a couple of years ago. On a good day we now run more tests than that. Of course, our tests are often smaller, but it is still a remarkable growth that we have seen since we started. We believe our commitment to making load testing easy and accessible to all is one of the big reasons behind this phenomenal growth.

To make a long story short, we are extremely happy with the reception Load Impact has gotten from the Internet community. We hope you will continue to use our service, and urge you to email us or post in the forums if you have any ideas, suggestions, critique or feedback that you would like to share with us. We are very interested to hear from you and are listening intently to the community when we decide what future directions to take the service in.

We would like to send a big thank you to all our users. May all your companies survive the tough times we're going through, and come out leaner and stronger than ever before. Hopefully load testing with Load Impact will help you a bit on the way!

/Ragnar & the Load Impact team

New site update!

loadimpact.com has been updated with new features

Load Impact version 1.35 is now live on loadimpact.com. This version contains numerous improvements and fixes, many geared towards improving usability. There are also two new measurement metrics - "User load time" and "Bandwidth usage" - that you can use to plot graphs.

Read more details about the update here

Load Impact featured on F5 devcentral

F5's Lori MacVittie has written an article on load testing with Load Impact

Lori MacVittie from F5 has written an article about Load Impact. In it she provides a wealth of information and insights into both positive and negative aspects of online load testing. The article also gives a very good introduction to Load Impact as a service.

For more information, go directly to the article: http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvit … mpact.aspx

日本でも人気のある『Load Impact』

Load Impact is popular in Japan also

100shiki.com and japan.internet.com have written articles about Load Impact, which have resulted in a lot of interest in our service from the japanese community.

Load Impact featured on Digital Inspiration

Load Impact was recently featured on the popular Digital Inspiration blog

Read the full article here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/can-sites-handle-huge-web-traffic/7785

Digital Inspiration is one of the more popular blogs on the Internet, with 2.5 million pageviews per month. The founder, Amit Agarwal, was the first professional blogger in India in 2004 when he started his blog.

Thanks to his article, we have seen a large number of Indian people starting to use Load Impact the last few days. Considering how big the IT industry in India is, it might be the best market of all for our services. If that turns out to be the case, expect to see a load generator node in India soon!

5,000th test!

Load Impact users have run 5,000 load tests since the service went live in december!

That means we have been doing one test every 30 minutes or so, on the average. Lately, however, the frequency has been higher, averaging 5-10 tests per hour.

Ragnar Lonn, founder and CEO says: We're extremely happy with the interest in our service so far. We're continually working on improving the system for our users, and will soon launch several updates to the site that will make it even more useful to web developers and testers out there. Keep an eye on this space."

Load Impact featured on IDG/Computer Sweden

IDG/Computer Sweden recently featured an article about Load Impact.
The article text (in swedish) can be read here: http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.207035/overb … estallning

Test queued but nothing happening?

When there are many people trying to run tests on our site, the free tests are given low priority, which means your test will end up being queued..

Depending on the number of users trying to start tests simultaneously, you have to wait a shorter or longer period of time for your test to start. You can register an account (also free) for a bit higher priority. If you buy one of the subscription accounts you will rarely experience having your test queued for execution more than a few seconds.

Load Impact goes live!

http://loadimpact.com is live! Try it out and don't hesitate to tell us what you think.

Load Impact goes BETA!

Today, we're releasing the first closed BETA version of Load Impact!

The system is operational now. We have load generator nodes set up in Stockholm and Chicago and we're also trying out the Witsbits computing cloud as an alternative load generator. In the future we might rely more on cloud services to be able to scale up our load tests on demand when a customer wants really large traffic volumes.

The software is fully functional, although we're sure there are still bugs and many things left to improve. We're grateful for any and all bug reports, suggestions and other feedback you give us while trying out this system.

Feel free to discuss things in the General forum and be sure to look in the FAQ section if you have any questions. We will extend the FAQ section continuously throughout the BETA period. Also note, the bug report feature in the top menu on loadimpact.com. If you run into a bug, just move your mouse over "Support" and then click on "Bug report" to submit a bug report. If you do this from the very browser window in which you encountered the bug, Load Impact will note what page you came from and what browser you use, which might make it easier for us to track down the problem.

Happy testing!