BlazeMeter – a Full Review of a Platform for Load Testing

What Is BlazeMeter?

BlazeMeter is a special product for exhaustive integrated load testing and all possible performance tests based on a group of cloud systems. The product is totally compatible with JMeter. It is a perfect solution for various software tests (from desktop programs to mobile applications).

BlazeMeter logo

The BlazeMeter platform is a program for comprehensive web testing and checking the load functionality of different software. The product is fully compatible with Apache JMeter.

With this program, developers and testers can do the following:

1. Create a real model of users’ behavior with a product under test;
2. Use further capabilities of test scripts and test loads on clients’ requests;
3. Make complex interactive reports in a real-time mode.

The tool provides 10 free hours for testing and up to 50 different users for one testing month.

Basic Features of BlazeMeter

The tool allows programmers and QA engineers to make various test scripts of highly complex custom actions to assure the software can withstand the overloads while clients use it.

Main benefits of the product are:

• Possibility of using different scenarios of load testing with any number of test steps.
• Creation of a personalized virtual software QA laboratory with the possibility to connect up to 8 geolocations from different browsers.
• Detailed interactive reports, especially performance reports which are presented in a convenient and easily understandable form.
• A user can receive detailed performance reports on each test session that allows analyzing the load and searching for critical vulnerabilities in the software under test.
• Full management and regulation of tests. A user can view reports and key performance indicators in a real-time mode (from CPU load to system capacity).
• All tests are saved in a special repository that allows a user to work with its data at any time (to compare completed tests for various periods of time).

BlazeMeter, like Heroku, is an essential cloud platform, if you need the following features:

1. Scalability. The BlazeMeter product enables full scalability based on cloud computing. All resources for load testing are used only as necessary and are available on an on-going basis.
2. Easy integration of performance monitoring tools and TeamCity, Bamboo, and Jenkins plugins. They can allow quickly integrating software performance tests in a constantly repeating lifecycle of web product development (for further projects and tasks).
3. Management in remote access mode, easy data exchange inside the tested environment with the capability to upload the configuration data from the cloud environment.

Example of BlazeMeter interface

Using BlazeMeter Based on REST API

It is quite easy to create and edit any load tests. After a user makes personalized tests, they can be easily launched on different local machines based on the API interface of BlazeMeter REST.

Beginning of Work

Open BlazeMeter.

Click on the Add test parameter to create a new test and edit its system features. If a user creates a test for JMeter, he/she should previously upload his/her test script in a system.

After the test is created, copy test ID and paste it in the file for further use. This identifier will be an API function for system identification of verification.

How To See Test Reports?

You just have to click on an icon in a list of additional parameters of a program. A system will redirect you to a login page on a BlazeMeter official site.

Interaction With a Blazemeter Toolbar

This product has a simple integration into a personalized environment based on usage of relevant a plugin library (JMeter, Jenkins, Drupal, or WordPress) or personalized API for connection of any localized system.

Also, the advantage of BlazeMeter is that one click can launch up to 100 virtual testing servers that have enough power to solve the most difficult operating tasks. It is possible to set tests just in a few seconds that allows users to shorten the time for configuration of all the necessary settings regardless of modification to testing requirements.

A lot of connected servers in regions allow making personalized tests from Tokyo, Mexico, Canada, and Singapore. It means that specialists can perform load tests with the maximum realistic features of the software.

Conclusion

BlazeMeter is a very useful tool to solve various tasks of load testing and other performance checks. Such tests based on cloud computing allow performing a full review of software under examination.

Numerous integration options with third-party services, as well as lots of personalized settings, make BlazeMeter a useful tool in the everyday activity of not only a developer but also a tester.