Implementing Performance Testing as a Service

Providing a turnkey performance testing function to accompany ongoing development efforts

The Goal

Establish an ongoing effective performance testing function

A global life sciences company was preparing to launch a new customer engagement platform that provided product information and interactive educational content to users worldwide.

When fully rolled out, the system was expected to regularly experience loads of up to 1,000 concurrent users with spikes of up to 5,000 during events such as new product launches. Since the client team had not conducted performance testing in the past, they sought a referral from an internal team and were introduced to Forte Group. Forte was hired to provide a turnkey performance testing function.

Forte developed a process to seamlessly integrate with the monthly release cycle using CloudTest from Akamai as the performance testing tool. CloudTest was the ideal solution because it allowed us to:

Generate load from cloud locations across the globe to better emulate the expected use of the client’s platform.
License the software in a “pay-as-you-go” model, so the client only paid for the time they used to execute the tests.

Client:

A global life sciences company

Industry:

Life
Sciences

Technology:

Akamai
CloudTest

Top Obstacles

Changing Needs

A new product launch was expected to drive significant new traffic to the client’s website, requiring a new approach to testing.

Lack of Experience

The client had not done performance testing in the past and did not have the expertise or tooling to conduct regular performance tests.

Outcome

Forte’s Performance Testing as a Service team integrated performance testing into the monthly release cycle to ensure updates didn’t impact platform performance. The client was able to deploy each month with confidence that platform performance would not be negatively impacted.

Working with Forte also gave the client ongoing access to world-class performance testing expertise and tooling for a predictable monthly cost.

Key Benefits

Confidence

Knowing the platform had been thoroughly performance
tested gave the client higher confidence
as they rolled out new products and content.

Efficiency

Outsourcing performance testing allowed the client to
mitigate the risks and unpredictable cost
associated with building the function internally.