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OctoPerf 11.9 - Azure on demand, new JMeter, setup/teardown threadgroups and more

Here we are for yet another new release of OctoPerf. We've actually released two minor versions since the last update post, but this time we will also release a long awaited feature, Microsoft Azure on demand load generators!

We kept it in our beta version for a while since we wanted to be absolutely sure it can be used for proper testing. We are quite satisfied with it at the moment, but note that the agent startup time is much longer on azure than on other providers, you should expect to wait a few more minutes if you are using it.

Of course we also have other new and exciting features to share, so let's dive into it.

Improvements

Azure load generators

Azure

As stated in the introduction, you can now select Azure load generators from the locations tab of your runtime profile. This opens up a lot of new locations and will help you test your applications under even more realistic conditions than before.

Of course it comes with all the usual features like retry on agent startup failed and load generator monitoring live during the test.

OctoPerf 11.7 - Pacing, monitoring, dynatrace and more

This new release of OctoPerf brings a lot of long awaited features. This is all based on your feedback, so make sure to let us know what you would like to see in OctoPerf next!

Of course we have a few plans of our own for the future, but I strongly believe that a good software can only result from a good collaboration between users and developers.

Improvements

Pacing your execution

Throughput

If you ever had to execute a load test campaign you are probably aware that it's not only a question of concurrent users, you also need to define the execution rate of each user.

JMeter provides a Constant throughput timer that is also available in OctoPerf, this way you can define a target hit rate and the timer will increase or decrease to try to maintain this rate:

Throughput

The main problem with this timer is that it is incompatible with anything that influences sub requests like the automatic resources and follow redirects option.

It's also often difficult to translate real business transactions activity to a certain number of hits/s.

OctoPerf 11.6 - Automatic SLAs and other quality of life features

JMeter 5.2.1

In december, we updated OctoPerf to use the latest JMeter version. Although, as a minor version, it doesn't bring a lot of new features, it is always better to stay up to date with the latest bugfixes. We had to implement a small change in OctoPerf because JMeter now properly enforces the cache control headers in every situation. To avoid any confusion, cache control headers have now been disabled by default in OctoPerf:

Cache control

Simply because every script using a loop or calling the same page several times could be impacted by this change otherwise. You are welcome to activate them if required anyway.

OctoPerf 11 - Modular design, tags and improved administration

Modular design

One of the things we always wanted to handle in OctoPerf is modular design. In JMeter you can use test fragments. So far when you imported fragments in OctoPerf their content was just duplicated over the original Include controller or Module controller.

But now not only can you import your modular design from JMeter but you can also create it directly in OctoPerf: Create fragments

A fragment virtual user can be seen as a library of functions. At the moment it is only possible to populate it by copy/pasting content but more options will come later.

Then inside any other virtual user of your project you can create a Link action: Link fragments You can use this to zoom on the fragment itself. That can be useful for instance to see what's the result of a virtual user validation on a test fragment.

OctoPerf 10.6 - Microsoft Azure, Gitlab CI and Oauth2 login

Improvements

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure

We are pleased to announce that you can now connect your own Microsoft Azure account to OctoPerf This way OctoPerf starts agents automatically for you inside your Azure environment exactly the same way we do with AWS. It's a neat option to avoid permanent firewall rules or load agents. Also Azure provides a large number of datacenters. As usual it is also available with your OctoPerf free account. You can find the procedure in our documentation on Microsoft Azure integration.