SAP LoadRunner by HP Solution Brief

SAP Solution BriefSAP Solution ExtensionsSAP LoadRunner by HP

Analyze, Validate, and Optimize Business Application Performance

BenefitsSolutionObjectives Quick Facts

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Objectives

Test performance throughout the application lifecycle Given the pace of business today, it’s essential that your increasingly complex mission-critical applications operate at peak performance and scale to meet changing requirements. The challenge is accurately predicting system behavior and performance under realistic stress conditions and quickly identifying the root causes of poor performance, down to the individual process.

Do you know if your mission-critical applications meet current performance and scalability requirements? Can you proactively increase the probability of success when deploying to production? Are your applications performing optimally?

The SAP® LoadRunner application by HP helps you verify that your application’s architecture is built for performance and reliability. Used by thousands of businesses worldwide, it enables

you to test both physical and virtual architec-tures quickly and efficiently for any workload level. You can test a broad range of applications, including those running on the SAP HANA® platform, by running high-scale tests using minimal hardware. And if performance bottle-necks are detected, you can identify and fix root causes and verify performance improve-ments before going live. It’s never been easier to benchmark production system performance, retest changes, and go live with confidence.

Test performance throughout the application lifecycle

Benefits Quick FactsSolution


Replicate processes and run real-life workloadsWith SAP LoadRunner, you can reproduce any number of business processes performed by a typical user of your software. To minimize scripting time, the software provides an easy-to-use scripting and debugging engine that even nontechnical or novice testers can use. The result is faster, more efficient scripting that significantly reduces test cycle time and frees up technical resources to focus on higher-level tasks, such as analysis.

Once scripts are developed, you can create virtual users for specific processes, expand-ing user loads to hundreds or thousands of concurrent virtual users – whatever will real-istically test application performance during typical and peak workloads. Regardless of the workload, testing requires minimal time, effort, and hardware, allowing you to test earlier in the application lifecycle – and fix defects when they are inexpensive to address.

You can determine the best hardware and software configurations to use based on the operations of specific business processes.

Replicate processes and run real-life workloads

Analyze performance data to identify and diagnose problems

Evaluate, modify, and retest for performance improvements

Optimize the entire testing lifecycle

Choose the version that best meets your needs

Solution BenefitsObjectives Quick Facts

Continued


SAP LoadRunner supports performance testing for a wide range of application environments and protocols, including SAP HANA, Web and mobile, Web service, and legacy technologies. In addition, the software supports testing of applications on all platforms running in the cloud or on premise, on bare-metal or virtual

machines, or in a hybrid environment. It enables you to seamlessly leverage public cloud infrastructure to deploy load generators to scale up and out securely based on your performance testing needs – all without com-plicated network configuration.

Run accurate workloads – including peak loads – to pinpoint end-user, system-level, and code-level bottlenecks rapidly and easily.








Analyze performance data to identify and diagnose problemsAs the software models and drives load against the system, it captures end-user response times for business processes and transactions. For example:

• Real-time performance monitors capture performance data from every component of the application infrastructure. By integrating with HP SiteScope, SAP LoadRunner can provide more than 60 nonintrusive, real-time monitors to measure the impact of load testing on every component of an application.

• Diagnostic functions collect application-layer and code-level performance and provide tools for drilling down into application-level issues. For example, using deep diagnostics, you can drill down into Java EE, Microsoft .NET, SAP, Oracle, and service-oriented-architecture-based applications to find the root causes of problems across heterogeneous application stacks.

After testing is complete, an analysis engine provides a single view of end-user response time and infrastructure-level and code-level performance. Autocorrelation and analytics engines help you identify the most likely causes of performance issues, and built-in, bubble-up analysis helps you quickly determine which transactions passed or failed service-level objectives and potential causes of failure. Using the software’s strong analysis engine, you can also slice and dice data to further pinpoint the root causes of problems.








Evaluate, modify, and retest for performance improvements SAP LoadRunner automatically measures sim-ulated performance against key performance indicators, establishes benchmarks, and rec-ommends changes related to the enterprise software that’s being tested. Once changes are made, tests are run again to validate the effectiveness of the proposed changes.

Equally important, based on the results of retests, you can establish intelligent service-level agreements (SLAs) based on facts, not educated guesses. In the event that users

experience a performance issue, you can quickly run accurate tests to verify that perfor-mance meets agreed-upon levels – or find and fix root causes of a problem. You will also have the opportunity to make changes recommended by the system.

Flexible templates make it easy to generate custom reports for stakeholders. Customized templates can be applied to other performance tests, as needed.

Use test results and analyses to optimize the performance of applications running on SAP HANA. Gain key insights to make the most of the platform.








Optimize the entire testing lifecycleSAP LoadRunner supports performance test-ing throughout the entire application lifecycle. For example, SAP LoadRunner integrates with the leading development environments Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse. This allows developers to run unit tests using SAP LoadRunner. To facilitate intelligent release decisions, SAP LoadRunner is integrated with quality and security software such as the SAP Quality Center application by HP and SAP Fortify software by HP. Together, the applica-tions create a comprehensive solution for managing release risk – and enable you to make informed decisions prior to going live.

Complete integration with SAP Quality Center – specifically, the unified functional testing module – helps bridge the functional testing gap and eliminate the risk caused by external dependencies on component services. And during the transition from prerelease to production, you can use scripts from SAP LoadRunner to monitor application perfor-mance, availability, and service levels in production under real-user workloads.







Now you can run performance tests with ease at any stage of the application lifecycle – even in high-performance environments like SAP HANA.


Choose the version that best meets your needsChoose from two versions:

• The standard edition of SAP LoadRunner, which is designed for business units or departments working on one project at a time in a single geographic location

• SAP LoadRunner, performance center edition, which is designed for multiproject, enterprise-wide performance testing, collab-oration, and validation

Choose the performance center edition when your stakeholders need to share assets from one project to another, want performance-trending information across multiple tests, need to compare performance against global

service-level agreements, or require a program-based, aggregated view of test results. The performance center edition, which includes all of the standard features of SAP LoadRunner, extends that functionality to take performance testing to a global enterprise level. For example, it allows you to:

• Collaborate for effective, realistic perfor-mance testing in less time

• Centralize testing to streamline resource and license usage

• Gain greater visibility using a testing center of excellence approach

• Optimize administration and management for continuous testing








Deploy with confidenceWith SAP LoadRunner, you can test perfor-mance quickly and easily at any point, gain insights into root causes, address them, and then retest – the keys to deploying new soft-ware or changes with confidence. Now you can:

• Increase efficiency and cut development costs by rigorously testing applications before going live

• Help your business adapt more quickly and easily to changing business processes by reducing slowdowns in application development

• Reduce the risk of software failure at times of peak demand by consistently performing thorough, efficient load modeling, testing, and validation

• Help ensure preparedness for SAP HANA by benchmarking and optimizing the current performance of enterprise applications selected to run in the high-performance environment – and then, after the move, comparing performance results to identify potential errors in migrated data

• Accelerate the planning and delivery of the newest classes of service-driven business processes

• Create a centralized performance testing center of excellence

Deploy with confidence


Generate real-life loads. Identify and diagnose problems. Deploy with confidence.

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SummaryTo support dynamic processes and changing user demand, enterprise applications must run optimally. With the SAP® LoadRunner applica-tion by HP, you can quickly validate performance with thorough load testing. Use it to simulate and run accurate workloads, benchmark pro-duction system performance, diagnose prob-lems, and retest performance before going live with new or modified functionality on the SAP HANA® platform and other environments. Objectives

• Benchmark performance of production software

• Help ensure a successful deployment on SAP HANA

• Accurately predict scalability and capacity • Establish intelligent service-level agreements • Shorten test cycles • Pinpoint bottlenecks • Find and fix defects earlier

Solution • Business process definitions to evaluate operations and determine optimal hard-ware and software platforms

• Diagnostics to identify root causes of performance issues

• Fast scripting to simulate and expand user loads

• Tools to measure simulated performance against key performance indicators

• Tools to retest and validate software fixes

Benefits • Increase efficiency and cut development costs

• Adapt to changing business processes • Reduce risks during peak demand • Prepare for deployment of SAP HANA • Speed planning and delivery of new, service-driven processes

Learn moreTo find out more, call your SAP representative today or visit us online at www.sap.com/loadrunner.

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