StresStimulus v5.2
  
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Release date - Jun-30, 2020

New Features and Improvements


Azure Cloud testing Support:   

  1. With a few mouse-clicks provision load agents on Azure.
  2. Chose VMs from any Azure datacenter worldwide. 
  3. Select the load agent machine's tech specs. 
  4. No additional licensing cost (requires active maintenance), only standard Azure fees apply. 
  5. Use Azure VM profiles for auto-provisioning load agents on-demand before the test starts.
  6. Automatically delete the cloud instance when the test is over to avoid unnecessary Azure charges.
  7. Mix and match Azure and AWS load agents.

More Versatile Test Designer:

  1. Extractor scope extended to a Test Case Group. Previously, an extractor could be used to create parameters only within the same test case. Now you can create parameters using extractors in another test case. 
  2. Ability to Verify a test case group. Previously, only one test case could be verified at a time. Now you can verify multiple test cases combined in a test case group. 
  3. More robust authentication module. It now incorporates a property grid that provides multiple configuration options in a consistent and scalable way. 
  4. Cloning extractors. When cloning requests or any object with requests such as transactions or loops, StresStimulus will copy all extractors to the clone.
  5. In the previous versions, every VU must have a corresponding row in the server authentication grid with credentials, even if the VU did not use server authentication. As a result, some dummy rows with credentials were required. In the new version, this is no longer necessary as credentials can be used more efficiently on demand.  
  6. Previously, dataset row binding to a VU was done in design-time by VU number. It required allocating data rows for all anticipated VUs even if they will not be instantiated nor access the dataset. In the new version, dataset row mapping to a VU can be performed in run-time on-demand only for VUs that require databinding. 

Enhanced Correlation and parameterization:

  1. Decimal encoding extractors. This encoding can now be applied to an extractor one or several times.  
  2. More Control over autocorrelation. Added an option to automatically create parameters for static MIME types such as images, stylesheets, and JS resources.  
  3. More control over cookies handling. If the server does not send cookie value in the previous response, StresStimulus sends the recorded values.  Now, you have an option to send empty cookies instead.  
  4. Detecting autocorrelated extractors that are too short and automatically suggesting how to correct the extractor's definition. 


Ease of Use for Higher Productivity:

  1. Simplified Validators. Now when creating a validator, you can see the recorded response to visualizing the text you want to validate.]  
  2. Waterfall diagram of a recorded test case. Now you can see a visual representation of how the HTTP sessions loaded during recording. 
  3. Easier troubleshooting authentication script. After Verify, you can now display credentials used under the Server Authentication. It can help to distinguish authentication issues between scripting or incorrect credentials. 
  4. Option to Opt-in/opt-out recording web socket frames. It helps to ignore web sockets traffic unrelated to the test case to avoid false-positive errors. 
  5. Verify tree now contains some extractor info to quickly find correlation issues when the error happened on a request with a green checkmark. 
  6. In a test with multiple test cases, you can verify any of them without leaving the context of the current test case that you are working with. 
  7. On the test case tree toolbar, added the "Expand to the right" button that restores the left panel size after shrinking it by clicking "Collapse to the  left." 

More Realistic Emulation:

  1. Option to emulate users restarting browser on every iteration. Previously the user session identified by a cookie was always carried over to the subsequent iteration (autocorrelated). Now there's an option to emulate a user restarting web browser on every iteration by eliminating session persistence between iterations.  
  2. Easier to use random extractors. Previously to simulate random clicks using a random extractor, it was required to specify a minimum and maximum occurrence. Now StresStimulus can determine this information automatically.  
  3. Better load generator performance.  It allowed a significant reduction in "gaps" that could happen before when testing super-fast applications using load generators with limited system resources. 

Enhanced VU distribution UI that now provides:

  1. VU distribution by Test Case, then by Load Agent or in reverse order.  
  2. Recalculation of VU distribution by mix weight or ratios for Test Cases, and Load Agents.
  3. Overwriting the calculated VU distribution for any Test Case, and Load Agents for more granular distribution.
  4. Quick adjustment of VU distribution before running the test.


More Test Execution options:

  1. More robust test workflow objects. If…then and do…while objects now support conditional expressions that can be based on not only on a constant string and extractor value match but also on scriptable variables.  
  2. More control over the request concurrency. Select Content-type to determine playback concurrency by content-type, (e.g. *.aspx pages requested sequentially, images requested in parallel). Select Recorded Concurrency to determine playback concurrency as recorded. 
  3. Client certificate authentication by VU. Now you can specify a unique client certificate for every VU.  
  4. The automated distribution of file upload scenarios. Now test files used in the upload scenarios are automatically synchronized from the controller to the load agents before the test start. Only file changes are replicated for higher performance.  

Enhanced Reporting:

  1. The Total transactions completed per sec curve is added to the KPI graph in the runtime dashboard, and the test result graph view. 
  2. Agent Report. Now each agent generates a report that includes all performance metrics collected on this agent. 
  3. More detailed reporting. VU activity diagram in the test report and transaction subreports now additionally displays iteration duration without think time.  
  4. Error View in the Page and Transaction subreports. It displays details of errors that occurred on a particular page or transaction. 
  5. Test activity interactive diagram. Previously the test activity diagram displayed statistics for the entire test. On the new activity diagram, you can select any time interval and receive statistics for that time interval. 
  6. Transaction activity interactive diagram.  The same improvement is made for transaction and page activity diagrams. 
  7. Faster reporting. Added the Activity table to the test repository database for more rapid test result calculations and retrieval. 
  8. Transactions per second are added in the test result – Summary View, Performance Metrics section. 
  9. Enhanced external reports. Display a tooltip with the full path when hovering over the long request paths. In the prior versions, the long request paths were difficult to see.  
  10. The number of Completed Transactions and Pages are added in the test result – Summary View, Performance Metrics section.  
  11. Coherent graph visualization in the run-time dashboard. A consistent scale and the timeline auto-scroll are maintained during the test progress. Previously graphs did not consistently scale.
  12. The test result now displays the version of StresStimulus that executed the test.

Other Improvements including:

  1. Added support for the MS Edge browser when recording on Windows server 2019, 2020, and some older servers with the latest service packs.
  2. Improved the UI for pasting into the authentication grid.
  3. Scriptable variables code recovery if a crash is to occur. 

Multiple fixes




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