 |
| Silverlight Development |
Most
companies, nowadays, use the latest technologies to deploy their
mission critical applications on the web. So the performance of each
application must be tested under different loads and environments.
Often the applications are load tested by simulating the users of
many users at a time. Many developers use Microsoft Silverlight to
develop robust application to complement the need and objectives of
their organization.
But
the technology is completely different from other conventional
applications as the content is delivered without reloading the page.
Also, a Silverlight application has to be constantly updated by the
server in an asynchronous manner. So application testers often find
it a daunting challenge to emulate the test loads realistically. If
you are planning to use the new technology to develop or deploy web
applications, it becomes essential to explore innovative load testing
techniques to address the new challenges.
Silverlight
Development Tip#1: Optimize Your Application to Support Multiple
Communication Protocols
For
load testing an application it is essential to simulate all types of
end-users in an exact and accurate way. So the load testing tool must
support the different protocols supported used by Silverlight to
process user requests. The support will result in smooth extraction
of data based on the parameters submitted by individual users, and
validating the response.
As
a Silverlight application can communicate with the server using
multiple protocols, you need to ensure that it supports the Windows
Communication Foundation based protocols including REST, and SOAP
with classic XML or binary XML. You can design Web services using a
set of architectural principles defined by REST. These protocols
decide how to use important HTTP verbs like GET, POST, PUT and
DELETE. As a XML-based protocol, SOAP allows you application to
receive and send information over HTTP.
At
the same time, you have options to choose from two approaches to
handle applications using SOAP protocol. Along with using an XML
manipulation method, you can further load test your application using
a specialized tool with dedicated SOAP support capability. Unless
your application supports these key communication protocols, the tool
will fail to generate realistic test design for individual virtual
users, and thus make the test results insignificant and worthless.
Silverlight
Development Tip#2: Allow Automatic Processing of Application
Identifiers
The
Silverlight applications use a variety of identifiers for internal
processing. Along with the identifiers common to each Silverlight
application, you can also use identifiers specific to your
application. Normally, these identifiers are uses as parameters to
customize requests and respond. However, you can use multiple
identifiers at a time to process the requests sequentially.
Generally, the identifiers keep changing whenever a new communication
takes place between the client and server.
If
you do not assign correct values to the identifiers, these will
generate error when you playback a recorded session. So you must
extract each parameter at the runtime, and assign appropriate value
to simulate the users in an accurate way. However, you must avoid
handling the identifiers manually to save your time and efforts.
While load testing Silverlight testing, you must use the right tool
that automatically detects and processes identifiers related to
specific application. Also, you must allow the load testing tool to
process custom identifiers automatically by declaring custom
correlation rules.
Silverlight
Development Tip#3 : Identify and Fix the Cause of Performance
Problems
While
load testing the application, it may throw errors or has longer
response time. So you must identify the root cause of such problems,
and fix these as early as possible. Often such problems are caused
due to issues in your server infrastructure. You can monitor you
server, while running the test to easily identify the root cause.
However, it is also important to decide the required components and
appropriate values based on your application.
If
you are not a system expert, it is advisable to use a specialized
tool that can select the right counters automatically, and set the
threshold values to generate alerts. While selecting the tool, you
need to ensure that it is effective in setting threshold values and
counters according to latest industry standards. At the same time,
you must customize the setting to meet specific objectives and
requirements.
You
can also use results correlation as an effective tool to analyze the
test results, and identify the root cause of these performance
problems. These details can also be used to fix the problems in the
application and server infrastructure immediately to make the
Silverlight application more powerful.
In
addition to following these important tips, it is also a good idea to
customize the load testing strategy by keeping in mind the needs and
objectives of your organization. Also, you must change your approach
to load testing from time to time to launch a powerful Silverlight
application
while saving your time and efforts.
We
provide Silverlight
application development
services.
If you would like to discuss with our top
Silverlight programmers,
please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.
