In an era when technology is the driving force, mobile apps are at the forefront across all walks of life. There is an increasing significance of mobile applications and this makes carrying out performance testing of the mobile applications more important than ever before. All of us are relying on the mobile apps for a whole array of purposes including some crucial reasons impacting mobile app security payment transactions, social media apps, online gaming, learning applications, etc.
As mobile app development is increasingly getting modular in approach thanks to a whole array of ready to use components and third-party APIs, we need to take care if security concerns come through these third party elements. API load testing is important especially for this reason for mobile app or any API development company.
How to Carry out API Load Testing?
When carrying load testing, QA experts simulate many users using the app simultaneously. The increase in the number of users may considerably impact the behaviour of the API. Naturally, load API tests are carried out to evaluate this. It is done by sending specific number requests to one endpoint to evaluate how the system behaves under peak conditions or normal conditions.
Load testing normally is generally carried out after the first mobile app testing cycle, irrespective of whether it is automated or manual. For this, the system needs to have good performance in overall measure. In case your app project has limitations over budget and time, it is suggested to conduct load testing near the end of the development cycle as possible bottlenecks are known by that time.
Why Do You Need Load Testing?
Let us now have a look at some of the key reasons to embrace load testing.
Smooth and Speedier Performance
Slower loading time because of slack server response leads to lost users just because users always prefer fast-paced websites and Google also prefers them. According to Google 53% of mobile users will leave a web app or website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This is why load testing is vital to see how fast it loads with different loads.
Stability
When your app stops responding to user requests or when frequent errors occur, users can leave your app en-masse. To prevent this also you need to carry out API load testing.
Measuring KPIs
When carrying load testing, QA experts procure categorized statistics regarding response times to evaluate whether they meet the API provider’s specific requirements. These figures regarding load times show whether the app meets predefined KPIs comprising minimum, average, and maximum response times, number of errors, server requests etc. All this information will help you see whether the app is able to do well with the expected load on its backend servers.
What is The Role of JMeter?
Apache Jmeter is one of the most trusted and sought-after mobile app performance testing tools that is used widely by freelance testers and expert mobile app testing companies globally.
JMeter records the mobile application requests on HTTP(S) Script Recorder and then it can build and run the performance test scripts for different mobile apps. This requires configuring both JMeter and Mobile devices. In plain talk, it is like recording scripts in web apps.
This tool comes with a GUI (graphical user interface) mode to help experts to make test plans manually, choose from templates and record the app even from a browser session. Moreover, GUI mode delivers debugging and capability to evaluate the test results. You are also allowed to save the test results to an HTML, CSV, or XML file.
Read More: Importance Of Unit Testing In Software Development
Pros and Cons of JMeter for Automated API Testing
JMeter as a robust testing tool with global recognition and popularity has a lot of advantages. But it has equal measure of minus points as well. Let’s see the pros and cons of the tool in detail.
Pros:
- High speed API testing
- Faster scope tests
- Carrying elaborate load testing
- Carrying stress testing
- Generating test data and reports
- Open source and free tool
- A whole array of plugins and extensions
- Cross-platform tool
- Capability to use various programming languages such as Java or JS or PHP
Cons
- Needs a lot of system resources
- Not reliable for a huge number of requests
- There is limited testing results shown through tables and graphics
Configuring JMeter for Mobile App Testing
Now that you have a gross idea about the pros and cons of the JMeter tool, let’s explain configuring JMeter for mobile app testing.
Before you go to the script development, you need to configure the mobile operating system as it is going to be utilized for the test recording. JMeter can keep a record of every action by just applying a proxy. This is why configuring the internet connection is required to accommodate this.
Follow this path for configuration:
Launch JMeter -> Navigate to File -> Templates -> Choose Recording -> Tap on Create.
This clearly shows how we have included all the key parameters for Recording scripts.
Now, go to HTTPS Test Script Recorder -> Set port to 8080
Now, track your IP Address by ipconfig for Windows operating system and ifconfig for Linux operating system. Thereafter this IP address will be loaded on the mobile device running either iOS or Android phone for setting up the proxy.
To save the configuration and proxy on the phone one needs an appropriate JMeter Certificate. You can download the certificate from Apache JMeter Temporary Root CA for Android and for iOS. All you need is to download the zip file of the certificate for the respective operating system and save it in the mail.
Conclusion
This is the most tested and tried tool for mobile app and API testing worldwide. Unless you find a better tool with such ease of configuration and use, you can’t leave aside JMeter.
