4 May, 2011 - Demand for UK-based Reflective Solution’s leading web application performance testing software, StressTester™, is steadily increasing in the US; San Diego-based IT consultancy Norima Consulting has adopted StressTester as its performance testing tool of choice for all its consultancy projects.
Reflective Solutions has a growing number of partnerships with consultancies on the East Coast of the US, but the relationship with Norima Consulting will be its first West Coast collaboration. Norima has selected StressTester to help extend its range of professional IT consultancy services it currently offers. The company is embarking on an ambitious growth plan and aims to expand its team of 45 consultants significantly over the next three years. Providing application performance testing based on the StressTester platform is an important strategic move by the company and is seen as one of the keys to the success of the business development plans.
StressTester offers in-depth analysis of a Web application’s performance, scalability and load capacity and is designed to reduce costs and project timescales by as much as 80 per cent when compared to traditional performance testing products. The tool, which is already in use by major US organisations, enables enterprise-class, correct and realistic testing, without the need for specialist scripting expertise. This means that testers can focus on regularly testing throughout the development life-cycle rather than expending many man days on writing test scripts.
David Kuik, CEO at Norima Consulting, comments: “Performance testing is important to our growth strategy and we wanted to partner with the best available performance testing software, to reflect the quality of our own services. StressTester gives us all of that and more, enabling us to offer a highly competitive solution to our clients.”
Alan Liggett, Reflective Solutions’ Director for North America, adds: “West Coast expansion is integral to StressTester’s success in North America. Norima Consulting is the perfect partner for StressTester, offering high standards of expertise, a credible name within the industry and a portfolio of exciting clients. We look forward to a long and productive collaboration.”
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Monday, 7 March 2011
Agile Thinking: A New Approach to Performance Testing
As an avid advocate of Agile development processes, Graham Parsons, CEO of Reflective Solutions, is aware of a strange anomaly that surrounds testing within the Agile environment. While the purpose of Agile is to ensure that software is developed in a progressive way – with the focus on checking that an application works at every stage or iteration – in the majority of cases only functional or unit / acceptance testing is carried out throughout the Agile process. Graham doesn’t believe that he can be the only one who has thought about the conspicuous question...what about performance testing?
The norm within our industry is to check that an application will perform or scale at times of peak user traffic at the very last minute, when a project is nearing completion and an application is approaching launch date. Why is this considered acceptable? At the risk of pointing out the obvious, this approach has a clear and fundamental disadvantage: it runs the risk that a significant performance defect may only be discovered after months of development work and / or days from application launch. If this risk becomes a reality, it can be hugely detrimental from a commercial perspective. Graham talks to EuroSTAR’s STAR Tester to answer these concerns.
The norm within our industry is to check that an application will perform or scale at times of peak user traffic at the very last minute, when a project is nearing completion and an application is approaching launch date. Why is this considered acceptable? At the risk of pointing out the obvious, this approach has a clear and fundamental disadvantage: it runs the risk that a significant performance defect may only be discovered after months of development work and / or days from application launch. If this risk becomes a reality, it can be hugely detrimental from a commercial perspective. Graham talks to EuroSTAR’s STAR Tester to answer these concerns.
Friday, 4 March 2011
Reflective Solutions Sign Partnership Agreement with Maximo EAM Specialist Vetasi
Reflective Solutions has announced a new technology partnership agreement with, Vetasi, the UK’s leading Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) consultancy.
Reflective specialises in the development of enterprise-class application performance testing and monitoring tools. The company’s flagship product, StressTester™, is used by major organisations to test that their Intranet and Extranet applications and their e-commerce Web sites are fully optimised and scalable to support their business requirements.
StressTester™ is widely used to validate the performance criteria for users of Maximo EAM and other ERP and EAM applications. Unlike other enterprise-class tools, StressTester™ does not require weeks of set-up time which means that full, realistic performance tests can be conducted during the development phase, with results obtained typically in hours or days rather than the weeks required with other tools.
Reflective specialises in the development of enterprise-class application performance testing and monitoring tools. The company’s flagship product, StressTester™, is used by major organisations to test that their Intranet and Extranet applications and their e-commerce Web sites are fully optimised and scalable to support their business requirements.
StressTester™ is widely used to validate the performance criteria for users of Maximo EAM and other ERP and EAM applications. Unlike other enterprise-class tools, StressTester™ does not require weeks of set-up time which means that full, realistic performance tests can be conducted during the development phase, with results obtained typically in hours or days rather than the weeks required with other tools.
Friday, 18 February 2011
StressTester’s Graham Parsons talks to The Tester about performance testing in an Agile environment
The adoption of Agile practices during the development of a web application can deliver significant benefits, both in terms of an application’s quality and the enhanced productivity that generally results from the Agile development process.
One of the key purposes of Agile is to ensure that the current version of software functions as
expected, no matter what stage the development is at. To this end, every iteration of an Agile
project includes functional testing in the form of unit and acceptance testing. The early discovery and resolution of defects written into the code can help to guard against major unforeseen problems arising near project completion. After all, who wants to find a fault with the application weeks or even days before launch? This could severely compromise an application’s launch date (and delivery budget) and could cost a company dearly, in terms of overspend, lost revenue or business opportunities. There is even potential reputational damage to consider...
So, with a firm case in mind for functional testing during every iteration of an Agile project, together with an acknowledgement that this approach has become industry best practice, why do most developers apply a different logic when it comes to performance testing? In the latest issue of The Tester Graham Parsons discusses the risks and barriers surrounding performance testing in an Agile environment.
One of the key purposes of Agile is to ensure that the current version of software functions as
expected, no matter what stage the development is at. To this end, every iteration of an Agile
project includes functional testing in the form of unit and acceptance testing. The early discovery and resolution of defects written into the code can help to guard against major unforeseen problems arising near project completion. After all, who wants to find a fault with the application weeks or even days before launch? This could severely compromise an application’s launch date (and delivery budget) and could cost a company dearly, in terms of overspend, lost revenue or business opportunities. There is even potential reputational damage to consider...
So, with a firm case in mind for functional testing during every iteration of an Agile project, together with an acknowledgement that this approach has become industry best practice, why do most developers apply a different logic when it comes to performance testing? In the latest issue of The Tester Graham Parsons discusses the risks and barriers surrounding performance testing in an Agile environment.
Friday, 28 January 2011
StressTester’s Graham Parsons talks to Internet Retailing about the importance of performance testing in the New Year.
Figures show that online sales are continuing to grow annually; according to the Office of National Statistics, average weekly online sales increased by 36.6% year-on-year to £660 million a week in November 2010 and during the same period, web business accounted for 10.5% of all sales in the UK retail sector. At the same time however, consumers are becoming less patient with web pages that take more than a few seconds to load. Extensive research into consumer behaviour shows that if customers perceive a website to be too slow, they are likely to switch to a competitor’s website to make their purchase, resulting in lost revenue and lost customers for the original retailer.
With all of that in mind, ecommerce represents a significant revenue stream for most retailers in 2011, provided that their websites are up to the task. Internet Retailing asked Graham parsons why performance is the key to a website’s success.
With all of that in mind, ecommerce represents a significant revenue stream for most retailers in 2011, provided that their websites are up to the task. Internet Retailing asked Graham parsons why performance is the key to a website’s success.
Monday, 17 January 2011
Graham Parsons talks to Management Today: how to make sure your ecommerce site isn't leaking revenue
Online sales scaled dizzy new heights over the recent holiday season, thanks to the annual pre-Christmas shopping frenzy, snow hampering high street footfall and a record number of consumers trawling the net for sale bargains as early as Christmas Eve (and even on Christmas Day). John Lewis alone announced total sales of over £500m for the five week period leading up to January 1, representing a 42% increase compared with the same period in 2009. It seems realistic to say that the most successful retailers, regardless of size, are those tapping into this ever-increasing online consumerism trend.
Yet with consumers growing ever more impatient - as highlighted by extensive research suggesting that online shoppers are only prepared to wait a few seconds for website pages to display - it is not enough to merely have an e-commerce channel. It is critical that retailers’ e-stores are able to perform optimally and deliver a positive customer experience, even when hundreds, if not thousands, of customers are using the site simultaneously. Getting it wrong can result in the loss of substantial amounts of revenue to competitor sites that are better prepared for peak traffic periods.
Management Today asked Graham Parsons of Reflective Solutions, the company behind application performance testing tool StressTester™, for his top ten tips on how e-tailers can ensure their website doesn’t leak revenue to competitors. See Graham's response here:http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1049584/
Yet with consumers growing ever more impatient - as highlighted by extensive research suggesting that online shoppers are only prepared to wait a few seconds for website pages to display - it is not enough to merely have an e-commerce channel. It is critical that retailers’ e-stores are able to perform optimally and deliver a positive customer experience, even when hundreds, if not thousands, of customers are using the site simultaneously. Getting it wrong can result in the loss of substantial amounts of revenue to competitor sites that are better prepared for peak traffic periods.
Management Today asked Graham Parsons of Reflective Solutions, the company behind application performance testing tool StressTester™, for his top ten tips on how e-tailers can ensure their website doesn’t leak revenue to competitors. See Graham's response here:http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1049584/
Monday, 10 January 2011
Website Failure Snow Joke for National Rail.....
Graham Parsons comments on the failure of nationalrail.co.uk - have they lost customers as a result?
It's more important than ever that stakeholders in public-facing web and cloud applications realise that there is no second chance. Effective testing under realistic load is not optional but essential.
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