Mercury LoadRunner

Definition - What does Mercury LoadRunner mean?

Mercury LoadRunner is an automated performance and load testing tool from Hewlett-Packard (HP). An industry standard, Mercury LoadRunner is used to predict an application's behavior and performance prior to live release. It is an enterprise-class solution for analyzing system behavior and performance.

Mercury LoadRunner facilitates the evaluation of end-to-end system performance prior to actual client environment deployment, checks whether product performance meets client specifications and detects/isolates performance bottlenecks during development.

LoadRunner was originally developed by Mercury Interactive, which was acquired by HP in November 2006.

Techopedia explains Mercury LoadRunner

Mercury LoadRunner tests an application by applying consistent, repeated and measurable loads. A system's behavior under load is captured, and the data is analyzed to identify scalability issues that could impact actual client environment users. The tool verifies whether the service level agreement (SLA) can be met by driving the load against the system and tracing the response time of end users belonging to key business processes and transactions.

The Mercury LoadRunner tool includes:
  • Performance monitors, or agents, which monitor application path events and rapidly segregate system bottlenecks with minimal system impact.
  • An analysis engine that provides a single view of the end-user system and code-level performance data.
  • An auto-correlation engine, which scans all end-user systems, analyzes data and provides a top 10 list of the most likely reasons for system behavior. This helps resolve performance and scalability issues.

Key Mercury LoadRunner features include:

  • Reduced risk of deploying systems that do not meet a client’s business/performance requirements.
  • Determines system capacity to function under a heavy load and helps reduce hardware and software costs.
  • Helps monitor SLAs prior to going live.
  • Reduces test cycle length and helps ensure efficient delivery of top class applications.
  • Reduces repair costs related to defects/bugs by testing applications in early development life cycle stages.

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