Category Archives: Xceptance

Xceptance, XLT

XLT 4.9 has been released

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Xceptance released version 4.9 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest. This is primarily a 3rd party update release, but also delivers some improvements.

Here is a selection of the most important changes:

  • Script Developer supports Firefox 53
  • Selenium updated to version 3.4.0
  • Better reporting of JavaScript errors in script test cases
  • Master controller displays the configured load profile
  • Load test reports can be created for a subset of agents
  • Load test reports shows the number of entries in data tables and shows summary values when filtering the table
  • Demo app server ports can be reconfigured easily

Script Developer

Script Developer has been made compatible with the latest available Firefox version, while outdated versions are not supported any longer. Script Developer runs on Firefox 45/ESR up to 53 now.

Update Instructions: Firefox will not auto-update older versions of Script Developer to 4.9.0. You will need to do this manually. Please remove the currently installed version first and afterwards install the new version by simply dragging and dropping the file xlt-scriptdeveloper-4.9.0.xpi onto Firefox. Auto-updating within the 4.9.x product line will then work as usual again.

Alternatively you can visit the Mozilla Add-On marketplace and install Script Developer from there (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xceptance-script-developer/). Please make sure you uninstall your locally installed version first.

Framework

XLT now ships with Selenium 3.4.0. Make sure you update your locally installed driver binaries to the latest available version. This is especially true for geckodriver. In case you experience issues with geckodriver / Firefox, you might be better off running FirefoxDriver in legacy mode. The legacy mode is more mature.

All other core libraries have been updated as well. This also includes HtmlUnit for an improved browser emulation.

The XLT framework also comes with some functional improvements. In case a JavaScript expression in your script test case could not be evaluated successfully for any reason, the root cause will now be listed as part of the exception message. Libraries that make use of Java’s built-in logging framework do no longer log to the console, but to XLT’s log file.

Load and Performance Testing

The Mastercontroller now prints the configured load profile to the console when starting a load test and also when displaying the current status. This helps to spot test configuration mistakes earlier. Intermediate results downloaded, while a load test is still running, will now be flagged to distinguish them from final results.

The load test report shows the number of entries in a data table, and when filtering a data table, the footer row is updated accordingly. Load test reports may also be created for only a subset of the agents. You might remember that version 4.8 already delivered the ability to render reports for specific test cases only.

Last but not least, ec2_admin prints more details about running AWS machine instances and lets you review your choice before actually terminating running instances.

Demo App Server / Posters Store

The app server that hosts our demo applications uses ports 8080 and 8443 by default. Since these ports are often already used by other applications, you can now reconfigure them easily.

Our demo application Posters Store now runs with HTTPS only. Any HTTP request will be redirected to use HTTPS.

Sounds interesting? More details can be found in the release notes of XLT 4.9.

Software, Xceptance, XLT

Release of XLT 4.8

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XLT 4.8 is primarily a technology update release, but also comes with some new features.

First and foremost, XLT now ships with Selenium 3, the new version of the WebDriver library. All other core libraries have been updated as well. This also includes HtmlUnit for an improved browser emulation. Beginning with this release, XLT requires Java 8 to run.

The XLT framework also comes with some functional improvements. XLT now supports OperaDriver out of the box and can run FirefoxDriver in either the new Marionette mode using geckodriver or in the “old” legacy mode. When you drive Firefox via XltFirefoxDriver, you will get a much more detailed result browser now, with almost the same request and response details that you already know from XltDriver. Any values that you programmatically add to the newly introduced value log of a session are shown in the result browser as well. Furthermore, most of the XLT framework properties can now be configured not only globally, but also specifically for a certain test scenario.

For load testers, there is something in the box as well. If you use the AWS EC2 cloud a lot, you will be glad to hear that the new AWS data center in Ohio is now fully supported. The load test report has been tuned to become usable much faster, even with lengthy pages such as the Requests page.

Last but not least, the Poster Store demo application and the XLT Jenkins Plug-In have both been updated. If you ever wanted to load-test your WebDAV server, there is now a new demo test suite for that.

Sounds interesting? More details can be found in the release notes of XLT 4.8.

Xceptance

Xceptance at 11th Charity Relay in Jena

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Yes, we did it again. We’re athletic and we care for our community, so we took on another sports challenge and had three of us participate in the 11th Relay Race in Jena, a charity run covering a 3x2km distance.

We had a lot of fun and did pretty well but most importantly we’re happy that this year’s funds will be donated to the Kindersprachbrücke Jena e.V., a local organization devoted to helping refugees and migrants, especially children and their families, learn German and find a new home in Jena.

Xceptance

Open-Air in Jena – kulturarena 2015

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Logo KulturarenaWe are again supporting Jena’s widely acclaimed KulturArena Open-Air to contribute to local arts and culture. The international festival, which is held right in downtown Jena, is famous for hosting musical acts from all over the world.

This year’s performers include well-known artists such as Tanita Tikaram, Roachford, and Element of Crime. As always, visitors can also go to movie nights and theater performances. We’re excited to be a part of the biggest open-air event in Thuringia.

So come on out and enjoy exciting summer nights in Jena!

Xceptance

Xceptance at 5th Jena City Corporate Running Challenge

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On May 20, 2015, we again joined Jena’s greatest sports and charity event, the Jena Corporate Running Challenge. Every year local companies and organizations go on a 5 kilometers run in downtown Jena to promote sporting activities and, more importantly, raise money for local programs and institutions devoted to help others in need.

We had a lot of fun and all of us tackled the whole distance. This year’s funds will be donated to various charity projects in Jena: the Paten für Demenz project for people with dementia, the mental health charity Aktion Wandlungswelten, and the Stiftung Hodenkrebs dedicated to research on testicular cancer.

Xceptance

Xceptance Goes by Bike

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From May 9 – 29, the city of Jena hosts the so-called Stadtradeln event, a nation-wide campaign initiated by the Climate Alliance to foster climate protection and bicycle-friendly communities. Everyone is invited to get together in teams and compete for the most miles commuted by bike.

Banner StadtradelnA total of 46 teams is going to cycle in Jena and we are proud to announce Xceptance is one of them this year. Throughout the next couple of days we will therefore ditch our cars, get on our bikes as much as possible and track our miles as well as CO2 emissions saved. It is not that important to us where in the ranking we will end up: as an international company we still care about our local environment and we are happy to contribute in our own small way to climate protection and an eco-friendly Jena.

Open Source, Security and Privacy, Xceptance

We Take Web Privacy Seriously

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Internet SurveillanceWhile privacy laws are still a work in progress, the EU and Germany have made several statements about what is right or wrong. But the current state of regulation is unclear about what actually is permitted or has to be provided.

Xceptance takes the privacy of our users seriously. We decided to implement tracking and privacy for our website xceptance.com differently than what is usually seen on the market: we provide users with more choices, and we’re stricter about respecting your decisions, yet without pestering you with lots of button clicking.
Continue reading We Take Web Privacy Seriously →

Open Source, Software, Xceptance

Xceptance.com Goes Open Source

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GitHubLike most companies we use and benefit from open source projects from all around the world. To actively participate and give something back, we started our own open source project that others can hopefully benefit from as well: Our website Xceptance.com has been open sourced.

In building our new website, we faced different requirements and challenges, like easy to maintain pages, mostly static content, a modern design, multiple languages, multiple domains, and so on.
Continue reading Xceptance.com Goes Open Source →

Xceptance, XLT

Inaugural XLT Summit in Jena

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On January 19-20, 2015, Xceptance held its first XLT Summit. About thirty representatives of well-known companies from a variety of fields, including finance, retail and eCommerce, all of whom use XLT to help them in developing web-based software applications, accepted our invitation to meet at Xceptance’s headquarters in Jena, Germany. The goal of the conference was to give XLT users the opportunity to discuss their experiences using our tool both with each other and with the internal XLT development team.

To kick things off, on January 19 we enjoyed a casual dinner in a local restaurant. The next day there was a varied program consisting of presentations contributed both by Xceptance colleagues and external users. Our customers reported on their practical experience using XLT, and had a chance to discuss their results with the other users. The many different applications of XLT–from load testing to test automation to application monitoring–were thus illustrated in light of actual day-to-day practice. A selection of these presentations can be found here: http://goo.gl/fPJj1Q, and parts of the presentation provided by our guests from OTTO.DE can be read here: http://dev.otto.de/.

In addition, the XLT development team presented the newest XLT features. Our guests had the opportunity to speak directly with the developers about their specific feature requests, some of which we were able to immediately agree to implement.

In short, the conference was a great success. In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants, the XLT Summit will now be a regular annual event.

Last but not least, we would like to thank all the attendees, without whose engagement, interest and suggestions the event would not have been possible!