Summary

This chapter discussed how to do load testing, and how to build a load-testing environment. We first saw how it makes sense to run load tests not only during acceptance testing, but also during development. This was followed by various options to host the development site being load tested, which included installing Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 on a test server.

We then saw how to generate the required load, using free or low-cost web-based services, the free load generator program WCAT, or load test projects, a feature of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition and Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. The chapter concluded by showing how to make sure the load generator isn’t bottlenecking.

This was the last chapter. In this book, you saw how to diagnose performance problems, beginning with Waterfall charts and then drilling down further, using mainly performance counters. After you pinpointed the main bottlenecks, you saw how to remove these. This journey took us from the...