Automated Performance Testing

If you are like most test driven developers, you write automated tests for your software to get fast feedback about potential problems. Most of the tests you write will verify the functional behaviour of the software: When we call this function or press this button, the expected result is that value or that message.

But what about the non-functional behaviour, such as performance: When we perform this query the expected speed of getting results should be no more than that many milliseconds. It is important to be able to write automated performance tests as well, because they can give us early feedback about potential performance problems. But expected performance is not as clear-cut as expected results. Expected results are either correct or wrong. Expected performance is more like a threshold: If the performance is worse than this, we want the test to fail.

This meetup will bring a number of highly experienced people together to discuss how performance testing can be reliably automated to give us fast feedback. We will start with a number of lightning talks on different aspects of automated performance testing, and after that the panel will open a discussion with the audience on problems and ideas.

We expect to present 3-5 lightning talk speakers and panelists, including:

Lars Thorup, ZeaLake: Have implemented automated performance tests in C++ and C# using unit testing frameworks on various commercial projects for several years. Are currently advocating the use of performance trend curves to minimize the hassle of dealing with false positives and negatives. Will demo using NUnit and the CI-system TeamCity. Igor Minar, software engineer at Google: Is a co-lead of the AngularJS project that aims to bring simplicity to the development of client-side web development via declarative markup, data-binding, and APIs with testability baked in. In his previous life, Igor was a hardcore server-side developer at Sun Microsystems specializing in test-driven web development with Java, JavaEE, JRuby and Rails, and responsible for developing wikis.sun.com as well as other developer community webapps. Kowsik Guruswamy, CTO and Co-founder, Mu Dynamics, Inc: Has over 10 years of experience in application testing, networks, and security, distinguishing himself as a speaker at numerous security, network and cloud computing industry and analyst events. Will moderate panel discussion and demonstrate how to performance test web, API and mobile apps fast. Check back later as we expand the list. To suggest a speaker, please contact the organizer, Lars Thorup.

This meetup is kindly hosted by MuDynamics in Sunnyvale, and they will also provide snacks and drinks. We will be having a raffle with several prizes, including an iPad 3, a book on TDD and free consulting. The meetup will start with networking from 6pm and the talks will start at 7pm sharp.

Looking forward to see you!