We do load testing with LoadRunner Cloud. LoadRunner itself is cloud-hosted, but we load test the applications that are hosted on-premises or in our application data center. 

By implementing LoadRunner Cloud, we wanted to make sure that our applications are stable when there is a peak load with 3,000 or 4,000 users. We wanted to make sure that our applications are stable at any given point. To validate that, we are using LoadRunner Cloud. We are putting our expected load through LoadRunner and making sure our applications are stable.

We can plan and run tests using LoadRunner Cloud without having to manage testing infrastructure. That is very helpful. One of the reasons why we moved to LoadRunner Cloud was that they manage the infrastructure, and it is up 99% of the time. We used to support Performance Center, which was on-premise, and we also support application servers and all the load generators. It is a lot of work to manage them. Migrations, security scans, and all the patching take a lot of time, whereas, with the cloud option, our work is reduced by 50% to 60%. We can now focus on testing instead of managing the whole infrastructure. LoadRunner Cloud has been very helpful. It is stable and user-friendly. They provide scalability. They have a flexible licensing model, so everything is great.

LoadRunner Cloud has partially saved us money by not having to maintain hardware and the power costs associated with that hardware. In my company, we are still using on-premise load generators, so in our case, the savings are a little bit less, but any other company that has all public-facing or hosted applications does not need to spend any money on on-premise infrastructure. Because we are using a hybrid version, we are still spending some money.

The beauty of LoadRunner Cloud is that we can use the load generator that is hosted by us on-premises, and we also have the option to use their hosted load generator. If it is a public-hosted application, we can also use their public-hosted load generator, but in our case, all our applications are hosted in our data center, so we are using the on-premise load generator. We have the option to deploy those load generators as we want. We have deployed our VMs there. We have deployed them in our OCP cluster, and we have also deployed them in our AWS instance. On a day-to-day basis, we do load testing of our applications, and that load is distributed with a different load generator.

Initially, there were a couple of things, but they got resolved. When they released it three years back, they were not supporting multifactor authentication. We use Okta. In my business unit, we are using Okta integration or authentication. They were not supporting that earlier, but we requested them, and they implemented it. At this time, I do not see anything that they need to improve in existing features.

In terms of new features, they can natively integrate with Chaos engineering tools such as Chaos Monkey and AWS FIS. With LoadRunner, we can generate load, and if Chaos tools are also supported natively, it will help to get everything together.

I have been using LoadRunner for 15 years, but we have been using LoadRunner Cloud for almost three years. 

I have not seen any issues on that side of it. In three years, I have seen only one unplanned outage. Other than that, everything has been great. I have not seen any performance issues.

Its scalability is great. It is highly scalable. You can put as much load as you want as long as you have the license. They are supporting both licenses. You can pre-purchase a license or you can purchase over the cloud. They support scalability on the user side as well as the load side. In our case, we also have on-premises load generators. They support all types. It is easily scalable.

They are very good. I am supporting multiple tools. Support-wise, they are very good. In HP days, it was not great, but with Micro Focus and now OpenText, the support is better.

We reach out to them when we face any issues. Because it is cloud-hosted, we reach out to them and open a ticket if we are trying to start the load, but we are not seeing any screen or have any other issue. Within SLA, they reach out to us. If it is a new feature request, they reach out to us. We also have monthly calls with their customer success manager. They keep us up to date and give us all the information about the new things that are coming. They also send notifications beforehand when they have any maintenance scheduled. The communication and support have been good.

I would rate their support a nine out of ten. I am taking one point off because sometimes, it can take a few cycles to explain the issue to the support, but that is applicable to any tool. Overall, I am satisfied with their support.

Positive

Before this, we had the Performance Center tool, which was a Micro Focus tool. They are in the same line. Performance Center was on-premises, whereas LoadRunner Cloud is vendor-hosted. The base functionalities remain mostly the same. The main difference is the way we access them.

Performance Center only supported IE. Users using a MacBook could not access Performance Center, whereas LoadRunner Cloud is cross-browser. We can access the tool from any browser, which is very helpful, so one of the reasons for moving from Performance Center to LoadRunner Cloud was that LoadRunner Cloud supported different browsers, and accessing it was easy.

I was involved in its onboarding. It was easy. Because we did not plan to migrate anything, in our case, it was easy. We had ten years of data, but when we moved, we decided to not migrate that data because we wanted to start fresh. For us, it was very easy, but I do not know what options people have if they plan to migrate their data.

We did not calculate the ROI, but the benefits are definitely there. We are testing most of the customer-facing applications before putting them out there, and we are able to ensure that our applications are able to handle the load.

It is neither costly nor cheap. It is not too high and not too low. I know the price of other tools, and LoadRunner Cloud's price is in the medium range.

I did a PoC with other tools such as Flood, NeoLoad, and BlazeMeter. In my company, we are supporting multiple protocols testing. For web and API testing, any tool is good, but when it comes to RDP and Citrix protocols, LoadRunner is at the top in the market for supporting all different protocols.

If you are looking for only web or web service protocols, you can find a cheaper solution, but if you have any other protocol testing, then use LoadRunner because LoadRunner is the only tool available in the market that supports multiple protocol testing. For load testing, there are a number of tools, but they only support web or web services protocols, and not any other, so make sure you know what you are looking for.

Overall, I would rate LoadRunner Cloud an eight out of ten. For performance testing, I have not seen any other tool close to an eight.

We are using it for web testing and mobile testing. I am sure we are going to do some API and microservice testing.

I love that we can plan and run tests using LoadRunner Cloud without having to manage testing infrastructure. That was a part of the reason we went to the cloud. It was not too bad to manage Silk Performer infrastructure, but it was still a pain. 

By moving to the cloud, I am hoping we can spend less time managing and more time testing. I also hope that LoadRunner Cloud will save us money by not having to maintain hardware and the power costs associated with that hardware, but only time will tell. I do not know it yet.

It is feature-rich. It supports most protocols, which is important because I am in charge of a team at the bank, and we do performance testing for all kinds of different applications. We have tons of them. We even do video streams.

While evaluating tools and saying that this is the tool we are going to go with, one of the biggest challenges that I faced was related to our previous experience with Micro Focus. LoadRunner and Silk Performer used to be under Micro Focus before OpenText bought it. Towards the end, Micro Focus did a big money grab where they went around and harshly audited all the companies. My company got hit with millions of dollars for the software that should have been removed. Even though no one was using it, we still got hit. It left a horrible taste and a horrible reputation for Micro Focus at my company. I know OpenText is a different company, but OpenText needs to somehow address and show former Micro Focus clients or LoadRunner clients, Silk Performer clients, and ALM clients that they are not the same company. I come to this conference and I get this message, but I have to try and sell that to my manager. The manager who got hit hard with the charge is not going to believe me. He still has that bad taste. They are influential people, and they remember that, so OpenText somehow has to overcome that.

Their documentation is not technical enough for us. We would like to have much deeper technical documentation so that we can self-serve without constantly having to go back to them and ask.

We have been using OpenText LoadRunner Cloud for a few months.

We are just setting up the environment. We have had some issues with load generators disconnecting. There is probably going to be room for improvement there. I understand that nothing is perfect, but if we are seeing that already, we rather not just see it.

We have not dealt with them so much yet. The support for Silk Performer was excellent. We had excellent resources and support. I would rate them a ten out of ten, but on the LoadRunner side, I am undecided. Time will tell.

We are being forced to move to OpenText LoadRunner Cloud because Silk Performer is going to end of life. We were Silk Performer clients for over 20 years at the bank. It is going to reach the end of life this year, so we were forced to pick a new product. 

It was difficult and time-consuming. We have great folks who are working with our value-added reseller and OpenText, but the challenge that we are finding is that we like to be a self-serve shop. They do send us articles about how to do something, which is cool, but they are not technical enough. They are missing details. We understand that their documentation needs to be at that general level for the people who are not so technical, but they need to have a second level that gets down into every port in security concerns. We need much deeper technical documentation available so that we do not have to constantly go back and ask. Overall, it was difficult. It could be worse. I am not unhappy, but there is room for improvement. 

OpenText is providing support to help with our transition to LoadRunner Cloud.

We should be seeing an ROI in the future.

LoadRunner always had expensive pricing. At my company, we used to evaluate LoadRunner, but we stuck with Silk Performer because its pricing was always better in the past. I do feel that I got a fair deal this time. Our value-added reseller and our sales guy worked hard to give us a fair deal. I feel that we got a fair deal.

We did not go for the pay-as-you-go deal. I did an upfront package. I prefer that. I want to know what my costs are.

We did a complete RFP process with multiple vendors with an open mind, but LoadRunner did win the process. We looked at BlazeMeter and k6. LoadRunner stood out in terms of features and the protocols it supported. It had the most features and the largest protocol support. The other vendors have not caught up yet. I know they are working on it, but LoadRunner has got that advantage right now. Others are behind on protocols. 

With all the vendors, we sat down for a long three-hour demo and did a day in the life. We showed them what we do with Silk Performer and asked them to show us how we would do this in their tool. LoadRunner won hands down. It was obviously not the same, but they could reproduce almost everything. It is a better tool. With other tools, we found big gaps. k6 had some gaps, and BlazeMeter had some gaps. They are not bad tools, but for what my team does, they would have handicapped us.

For now, I would rate LoadRunner Cloud a seven out of ten. That could go up or down.

We use OpenText LoadRunner Cloud for different types of testing, including load testing, performance testing, etc.

The product’s most valuable feature is the Vuser license; it allows us to reduce the cost as per requirement. Additionally, its setup process is accessible as well.

We encounter hurdles while running the professional version for on-premise setup. They should work on this particular area of improvement.

We have been using OpenText LoadRunner Cloud for nine to ten years.

The product is more stable compared to other vendors like NeoLoad and JMeter.

It is a scalable platform. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

The product’s technical support team’s response time could be better.

Neutral

We use NeoLoad and JMeter.

OpenText LoadRunner Cloud’s setup is straightforward. I rate the process a nine out of ten. Although, I rate the process for the on-premises version a seven out of ten as we face challenges there. The on-cloud setup takes four to five hours to complete. It takes longer if there are some additional protocols included.

One executive from our team and one from LoadRunner’s team work on the on-cloud setup process.

OpenText LoadRunner Cloud is economical. However, it is expensive compared to other tools.

I recommend the product for performing testing of short windows. It would help if you opted for other tools, in case you are working with long windows. I rate the product a nine out of ten.

I have been using the solution for testing Salesforce and a few other applications.

The solution has improved the performance of the software.

The solution is intuitive, easy to use and navigate.

They should minimize the use of coding for the solution. Also, they should include features to import other scripts without rewriting them.

I have been using the solution since 2019.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable. I rate its scalability between a seven and nine out of ten.

The solution's technical support has been good.

Positive

We have used StormRunner and JMeter before. Also, we are doing a proof-of-concept for NeoLoad.

The solution's setup process was easy. Although, we encountered a few issues sometimes.

The solution is expensive. There should be a version that optimizes the price-to-performance ratio for the service package.

The solution is costly. I rate it a nine out of ten.