> There are some good nuggets in this article, but he seems to miss a point that I feel is very important and yet is often overlooked in real-world web load testing; emulating an actual client behaviour under different real-world scenarios.
I don't think he missed that point; he specifically limits his scope to HTTP daemons:
> A lot of people seem to be talking about and performing load tests on HTTP servers, perhaps because there’s a lot more choice of servers these days.
Testing web apps for performance is, as you point out, more difficult. There are tools for taking integration tests and running them in large batches. With some good instrumentation this is a kind of systemic profiling of your app architecture.
Perhaps I didn't phrase my comment as well as I should have. Indeed all his points apply and are excellent. As you pointed out, his focus is on testing the HTTP server for performance, rather than the actual apps running on them. The point I was trying to make is that all of the above, _plus_ additionally integration testing and app specific testing should really be done when preparing for the onslaught of a real-world deployment. Admittedly this is deliberately beyond the scope of his article.
I don't think he missed that point; he specifically limits his scope to HTTP daemons:
> A lot of people seem to be talking about and performing load tests on HTTP servers, perhaps because there’s a lot more choice of servers these days.
Testing web apps for performance is, as you point out, more difficult. There are tools for taking integration tests and running them in large batches. With some good instrumentation this is a kind of systemic profiling of your app architecture.
But all of his points will still apply.