hey guys i need to load test a website. the website serves different content based on what data it receives in query strings. i have a huge table in sql server with millions of records where these query strings are saved. what is the best free load testing tool which i can use for this?
ideally i would prefer if i can script in c# as i am comfortable with the same
in short, i need a tool which can read the query strings from a table in sql server and fire these to the website
On
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate edition has a great load testing suite and I heartily recommend it, provided you can afford it.
You can record tests through your browser and hook them up to a database without needing to code anything, but being a coder you will appreciate the ability it has to convert those tests to c# code, giving you the flexibility you want.
Visual Studio Ultimate edition allows you to simulate up to 250 "virtual users" before you need to get a licence. This gives you the ability to test to a reasonable load.
Most load testing tool can handle what you describe in varying degrees. Almost all of them can import data and use it to substitute for a query parameter within an URL. In most cases, you'll need to get the data out of the database (via a query) and then import it into the tool as a text file. Our product (Web Performance Load Tester) works this way, as do most of the open-source tools (ab, opensta, jmeter, etc). As few of the higher-end tools can query your database directly to get the data you need at the start of each test. If your application is as simple as you describe, you should be able to find a tool that doesn't require any scripting at all. I'm not aware of any C# load testing tools - you'll probably need to look at the MS solutions for that (e.g. Visual Studio Team Studio, which includes components for testing).