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Flex Load Testing Tool Available to Enterprise RIA application

Posted by Moxie Zhang on Jan 27, 2008

Sections: Development
Topics: Rich Internet Apps ,; Java
Tags: Flex

As InfoQ reported based on Forester's report, RIA is proliferating in enterprise information workplaces. One of challenges faces a maturing development platform for developing mission critical systems is to produce quality, scalable and well tested applications. Radview's Webload Flex Add-on is a testing tool to help load testing Adobe Flex application.

The WebLOAD Flex Add-On enables users to record, edit, parameterize and load test rich internet applications that are based on Adobe Flex 2 Environment. With the Add-On a Flex application test can be planed and executed to simulate the true nature of Flex Applications. This includes the effects of real user load on the application services running within the Flex environment.

In a nut shell, WebLOAD Flex Add-on works as a record-and-play mechanism. As Radview states:

Designed specifically for Adobe Flex, the WebLOAD Flex Add-On includes a specialized protocol recorder that intelligently records the Adobe Messaging Format (AMF) protocol into a format common to WebLOAD¡¯s Integrated Development Environment. The recording of AMF traffic automatically generates the corresponding JavaScript data structure. This enables viewing, editing, debugging and automatic verification of messages sent to the server and the AMF response returning from the server.

WebLOAD is a J2EE implementation and it uses JMX protocol to monitor run-time statistics from the Adobe LiveCycle Data Services SE Server. Adobe's recent move to open source LiveCycle Data Service server as BalzeDS (see InfoQ report) will certainly boost the usage of AMF based RIA server messaging. WebLOAD for Flex is providing improved ensuring for such enterprise RIA development.

A RIA system usually is very interactive and representing data from multiple sources. One significant feature of WebLOAD fits such RIA application is its supports of multiple protocols per session. Besides AMF, other web messaging protocols are also supported, including, XML, SOAP and REST.