Tool selection:
There are dozens of performance testing tools available and you can’t learn all these tools (within a day). You have to prioritize them based on your needs and interests. Once you have selected a tool then starts the real game.
Training Road Map:
After you are done selecting a tool, your next task is to find out the list of features you need to learn in it. So Before start working on the tool, it’s necessary to develop its detailed roadmap. It will provide you with the following benefits,
- This will give you an idea of tool features and sequence in which you should target them.
- Will help you Keep record of activities.
But the issue here is; that as you might be new to the domain you would not have much knowledge of the tools’ expected/available feature list. In this case you can approach it in following manners,
- Go through tool documentation and you might get a roadmap there.
- Check the features list and try to develop your own
- Consult some of the experts to provide you the input
- Search on the web or post on different forums and you might get one from there
Performance testing tool pre-requisites:
Familiarity with system administration, web applications administration and network administration is mandatory before moving on to the performance testing tool.
Many people don’t bother about getting performance testing domain knowledge before starting the hands on tool practice and as a result they have to put far more effort in learning basic concepts since they can’t proceed from a certain/basic stage without going back and repeating the activity.
For example if you are going to learn a software performance testing tool, its mandatory for you to first learn about performance testing (its importance, usage and outcomes) and its terminologies (response time, throughput, HPS etc.) and their mutual relationship etc. You can never learn a tool unless you have mastered these theoretical concepts.
Starting Point (User Manual):
There can be numerous ways to start learning on a tool. But based on my experience I will suggest you should First of all, go through all the officially available user manuals and/or tutorials. This approach is particularly helpful when you have to learn and test at the same time.
Believe me you can never get more easy and valuable help than this. I didn’t follow this approach while learning my first software performance testing tool and had to pay for it. But again, when I came back to it, I was amazed to see such valuable information presented in such a simple way.
Come back for a few more guidelines on performance testing tool learning.
