Mobile app load testing for a leading provider of location-based services. Forte Group

Mobile Application Performance Testing

Load testing a mobile app for a leading provider of location-based services

The Goal

Identify risks ahead of mobile app launch

The leading provider of real-time mapping and traffic data was preparing to launch a mobile routing and traffic alert application for transportation providers in North America. The client estimated an initial 20,000 concurrent users across the United States and Canada. With subsequent releases to Europe and Asia planned, it was important to understand how the app would behave under load.

The team had tested the app in their lab, but with limited experience designing and executing load tests at this scale, they knew they needed support to design a test that would mimic real-world production usage. 

The client’s Program Director for Global Development had worked with Forte Group before and knew performance testing mobile apps was an area of expertise. With a tight timeframe, she wanted to work with a team that had the talent and skills to move quickly.

Forte worked with the client’s team to design a performance test that would simulate the appropriate user and load profiles along with their associated concurrency and throughput characteristics.

The Forte Performance Testing Framework was leveraged to ensure the right tests were efficiently designed, built, and executed. 

In addition to planning the test and developing the test scripts and scenarios, Forte implemented a monitoring solution to ensure test results contained actionable data.

Client:

The leading provider of real-time mapping and traffic data

Industry:

Real-Time Mapping / Location Services

Technology:

Akamai CloudTest (performance testing platform)

Top Obstacles

Limited Experience

Previous mobile app testing experience was confined to small in-lab tests.

Group-13-1

High risk

The client’s app was expected to have 20,000 concurrent users across the U.S. and Canada.

Outcome

The test was executed from eight different cloud regions and made use of network virtualization technology to simulate lower bandwidth and higher latency associated with mobile networks.

During the performance test a critical configuration issue was identified. If not discovered and fixed prior to launch, the application would not have been able to support more than 50% of the expected load. The client prevented an issue that would have severely limited its capacity to serve users on day one of deployment.

Further analysis of test results led to the development of several performance-related enhancements that reduced the duration of the user authentication process, significantly improving the end user experience.

Just as importantly, the client earned an additional benefit from the collaborative process of designing and executing the test with Forte: they now had a roadmap for planning and executing future performance test activities independently.

Key Benefits

Group-13-1

No Impact “Failure”

Forte identified a critical flaw in the system configuration that the client was able to fix prior to launch.

Improved User Experience

Forte delivered performance enhancements that reduced the user sign in time by over 85%.

Group-327

Repeatable Process

At the end of the engagement, the client had a roadmap for planning and executing future performance test activities independently.

Build your innovative software with our cross-domain expertise

More customer success stories

How BMO Harris

Reduced BCP Review

Time by 40 Percent

Relativity accelerates value

delivery through quality and

testing modernization