So far in this activity, we have learned a lot about testing and the importance of testing. We discovered test automation with Selenium, using coded UI and using Test Manager and we experimented with adding and running tests and explored the outcomes of those tests and we were able to see that everything is kind of ok with our build.

But, the testing we performed did not test performance. And testing performance is key to successfully roll out new features.

Would it not be great if there was a way of releasing functionality into production, but then, ahead of releasing it into production, releasing it into a test environment and mimicking load that is production-like?

In this step, we will look at how you can supplement your build and release pipeline by adding out of the box tasks to test for performance and availability.

Run a Performance Test

By now, you should have experimented with semantic versioning, creating packages, publishing artefacts, consuming artefacts to provision infrastructure, deploying a web app and database and running functional tests.

The next step is to run a performance test.

To do this, you can navigate to the test section and find a cloud-based load test or cloud-based Web Performance Test Task. Follow these steps to complete the performance testing:

1. First, you need to establish a connection back to Visual Studio Team Services.

2. Next, you need to specify the web URL of the server that you will be testing. You will have the option of how much user load you want to mimic and the duration that you want the load to run for. Here you can also combine step load and threshold testing.

3. From there, you can opt to automatically provision your agent or you could self provision your infrastructure. You can also specify custom conditions within the task.

Triggering the execution of the task may take some time, but you will gain valuable insights from the results once thee execution is complete.

Join the discussion

What are benefits and challenges of releasing functionality into a test environment?

Use the discussion section below and let us know your thoughts. Try to respond to at least one other post and once you’re happy with your contribution, click the Mark as complete button to check the step off, then you can move to the next step, Automated Provision and Deprovision Environments.