APM Best Practices: Realizing Application Performance Management

Chapter 11. Load Generation

To err is human—and to blame it on a computer is even more so.

—Robert Orben

This chapter discusses what is perhaps the weakest link in the application life cycle—automated testing, or load testing,^[76] as part of the QA process. From my firefighting experience, I have found that the more I know about a stakeholder's QA practices, the easier time I will have getting visibility into their operational issues. Understanding their gaps in application testing often leads me directly to what is troubling them in production. Visibility is what I use to both confirm their suspicions and reveal issues they had not considered.

I have also noticed that reviewing what an organization thinks about the value of load testing, as well ...