Release date - Mar-21, 2019

New Features and Improvements:

Breakthrough Upgrades:

  1. Cloud testing 
    • Seamlessly provision AWS on-demand instances right in StresStimulus for use as load agents
    • Chose a virtual machine from anywhere in the world
    • Pick your load agent machine's tech specs
    • Delete the cloud instance right in StresStimulus when you are done
    • No additional cost for licensed StresStimulus users (only standard AWS fees apply)
  2. IP Spoofing for performance testing load balancers.  
  3. No-Proxy Recording (aka Tunnel recording mode). Now StresStimulus supports scenario recording from client applications and native mobile apps that don't use system proxy settings and don't allow manual proxy settings. 
    • Supports multiple https hosts for a single app

More Versatile Test Designer for Higher Productivity

  1. Reusable Test profiles to save time on test configuration. In previous versions, you had enter test configurations such as load and VU settings each time you created a test. Now you can save your settings to a profile and use it in multiple tests. 

  2. Disabling transactions. Now you can disable transactions you wish to skip during test replay. 

  3. Simplified use of datasets using default databinding. Now you can specify a default databinding method for a dataset once instead of specifying it for every parameter using this dataset. 

  4. VU-Iteration-Random databinding method for enhanced Dataset utilization. It consumes dataset rows in random order. 

  5. Copyable object descriptions on the test case tree. Just select any object and hit Ctrl+C and its description will be copied to the clipboard.

  6. More robust cookie parameterization. Now the value of the Set-Cookie object can be an expression consisting of several variables and constant strings instead of just a single variable (e.g., extractor or dataset). 

  7. Expressions in validation rules. Validators that now support expressions with extractors. 

  8. Verification of multiple iterations. It may be helpful to verify the 2nd iteration when a login transaction is marked to run on the first iteration only. 

  9. Verification tree with multiple test cases. It is useful when comparing TCGroup iterations.
  10. Transactions and pages on the verification tree. Now the verification tree shows not only sessions but also the entire test case hierarchy that simplifies locating any replay issues. 
  11. Comparing recorded and replayed extractors in the verification tree. Troubleshoot script by comparing recorded and replayed extractor's sessions from the extractor verification tree.  
  12. More robust custom patterns. Now you can customize how patterns are used to create parameters by using formatted parameters. 

  13. Session Image view allows inspecting individual images. 

  14. Image Comparer.  Now you can compare recorded and replayed images which is helpful for our applications with dynamic images. 

  15. Status Bar in Test Case Tree displays the number and type of selected objects. 

  16. Now extractors and patterns can be Base64-encoded if necessary. 

  17. Compatibility with Windows language packs.

  18. Option to exclude some MIME types and pages from the autocorrelation. 

  19. Extractors in scriptable components. Now a scriptable component can access an extractor that eliminates the need for parsing a response. 
  20. Simplified invocation of a scriptable component. Previously you need to program at which point of a test case iteration to invoke the scriptable component. Now you can automatically run the scriptable component at the end of every iteration. 

  21. Reducing Test Storage Use. Increased efficiency of test storage utilization by more than 800%. 

Ease of Use Enhancements

  1. Diagnostic in opening test cases.  Now error reporting will display the test case name and session number that fails to load. It can help with opening tests with multiple test cases when one of them is corrupted. 
  2. Create parameters faster. When searching a particular value in the test case requests, the sessions(s) containing the value will be highlighted. After creating a parameter on these session(s), the value will be already highlighted in the parameterization controls. 
  3. Text Comparer. This built-in utility compares any arbitrary texts and color-code differences. It is helpful to compare any fragments of requests or responses necessary for manual correlation and parameterization. 
  4. Preventing frequent errors when modifying hosts. Prevent changing it using the request inspector. Instead, this should be done using the Host Remapping feature. 
  5. Preventing an error with entering the recorded host and new host in the reverse order in the host remapping dialog.

  6. Simplified test storage management by merging settings for requests and response content into a single Purge Session Content property. 

  7. Easier certificate installation on mobile devices. In the previous versions this required proxy configuration. Now it is no longer necessary. 

  8. View Options on toolbars. On the Extractor Tree and Test Case tree, several toolbar buttons are combined under the "View Options" button to condense the required screen space and simplify usage.

  9. "Create Container" and "Insert Object" sub-menus groups on the test case tree context menu to improve usability.

  10. All objects on the test case tree are draggable. In previous versions, you could only drag and drop session objects to reposition them. Now you can drag-and-drop all objects. 

  11. Context-sensitive Help in property grids. Property grids included a link to a pop-up help window containing an additional description of the property.

  12. When displaying the test case tree for the first time, the property grid below is shown expanded.

  13. Now you can change the folder to store the SQL CE database files from the Result storage property grid. 

  14. Avoid false-positive warning due to recorded and replayed response size discrepancy. Previously when a response of a session executed on a load agent is configured to be truncated, it was flagged on Verification Tree with warning status. Now such sessions are marked with the unknown status. 

  15. Lean UI mode notification on the test case tree to inform users that some parameters are hidden to prevent UI slowness.  
  16. When recording USD scenarios, the first transaction is automatically set to "log in".
  17. Skip proxy diagnostic option allows disabling proxy diagnostic when it interferes with Scenario recording. 

Broader application support 

  1. Added support for SAP Netweaver. 

  2. Support for client certificates authentication. 

  3. Support for SignalR applications. 
  4. Support recording scenarios with Brotli compression in Chrome.

Simplified Scenario Recording 

  1. More reliable scenario recording from fat clients.  Now you can specify a client's process name to record only relevant requests. 
  2. Add a sub-scenario recording to an existing test case. Now we can expand an existing test case by recording additional user actions. 
  3. Mobile scenarios: Easiest certificate installation on mobile devices.

  4. Recording USD scenarios:  Now StresStimulus will launch USD even if it is installed in a non-default folder. 

  5. Automatic cash clearing when recording from USD. 
  6. Automatic IE cache clearing in normal mode. When a scenario cannot be recorded in private mode, now you can record it in normal mode and still avoid manual cache clearing. 
  7. Automatically determining unnecessary hosts and deleting their sessions with one click. 
  8. Recording  PATCH requests. 
  9. Recording  scenarios in Microsoft Edge private mode.

Enhanced Reporting

  1. Monitoring errors during test execution. In previous versions, you could analyze errors only after the test completion. Now you can monitor errors as they occur in real-time. 
  2. Custom reports with SQL CE Test Repository.  Now you can directly query test results stored in SQL CE files to generate custom reports. Previously, custom reports were only available for SQL Server repositories. 
  3. Custom re-scaling of individual graph curves. Now you can customize each curve's scale in the test result for better graph presentation. 
  4. Compare a transaction, page or iteration from the report with the recording (request-by-request. 
  5. Test output to save values of extractors and data generators collected during the test execution. 

More Robust Load Generators and Automation

  1. Better control over the test workflow. Now we can limit the number of iterations for specific test cases so that they can stop before the test completion. 

  2. Test case bound to a load agent. Now you can assign a test case to a specific load agent. 
  3. Enhanced command-line Interface now allows running tests with a specified test profile. 
  4. The command-line interface now allows specifying a test run name and description which will be displayed in the report. 
  5. Upgraded scripting event model. Added OnAfterIteration event that is triggered on completion of each iteration. It can be useful to create custom processing after replaying a script by a VU. 
  6. Added a validator failure option to abort a VU. 

  7. Simplified monitoring of load agents. Now load generator machine and security account information are determined automatically by the performance monitoring module. 

  8. Asynchronous requests. Previously, async requests in a scenario locked execution of a test case. Now this limitation was removed. 

  9. Automatic synchronization datasets with data sources. 


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