Latest version updates for Silk Performer
Jenkins Plugin Enhancements
Jenkins Plugin Enhancements

The Silk Performer® plugin for the continuous integration tool Jenkins has received a major upgrade and now provides a number of new features. It improves automation through support for Jenkins slaves and source control systems and enhances results analysis with trend charts, overview reports and success conditions.

Support for HAR files
Support for HAR files

The HTTP archive (.har) format has been designed by the Web Performance Working Group of the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) and is used by browsers to store performance data about loaded web pages.

Silk Performer is now capable of importing .har files from different sources for script generation, thus improving collaboration with developers and support personnel.

Features

HTTP/2 Replay

Silk Performer 19.0 introduces HTTP/2 replay for web protocol scripts. HTTP/2 is a major revision of the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used in the World Wide Web. It offers a number of improvements over HTTP/1.1, which results in a considerably faster communication between client and server. These improvements include a specific header compression method, the so-called server push feature, and the single-connection approach. Silk Performer now supports these HTTP/2 features for performance and load testing. Using HTTP/2 requires no additional licenses whatsoever.

Browser-driven Load Testing with Chrome and Firefox

In addition to facilitating testing of today's modern web applications on the protocol level (HTTP), Silk Performer enables you to use real web browsers to generate load. In addition to Internet Explorer, you can now also use Chrome and Firefox to replay browser-driven scripts. Recording is still Internet Explorer-based and managed through the Browser Application. You can either reuse functional tests that have been created with Silk Test®, or you create your browser-driven scripts from scratch within Silk Performer.

New CloudBurst regions

CloudBurst is now supported on Google Cloud Platform, AWS and Azure.

Developing performance tests using Visual Studio and C#

The new Silk Performer Visual Studio extension allows you to develop performance tests in Microsoft Visual Studio. It offers functionality to record web technologies, supporting both the protocol-level as well as the browser-driven approach. The extension provides a comprehensive C# binding for all kernel, web, and browser API functions. Thus, it combines the rich development feature set of Visual Studio, including all debugging features, with the powerful load testing capabilities of Silk Performer, including capture file recording and TrueLog analysis.

Leading web support across all major web environments

Ensure high performance across all major web environments—HTML5, AJAX, Responsive Web Design, Adobe Flash/Flex, and Microsoft Silverlight—with Silk Performer: the world leader in performance testing. Easily create accurate and realistic tests with hundreds of thousands of users on different devices, browsers, and connection speeds. Silk Performer provides multiple web testing approaches like web protocol and browser driven load testing.

  • Detect asynchronous communication patterns: push, polling, long-polling, WebSocket connections
  • Incorporate usage patterns and user tolerance levels
  • Test viewport widths to correct layout of responsive web design
  • Detect bandwidth constraints or backend server issues
Extended browser support for imported functional tests

In the previous release, Silk Performer introduced functionality to reuse your functional tests for performance testing. For browser-driven tests, Silk Performer now also supports Internet Explorer, Edge, and mobile browsers—in addition to Firefox, Chrome, and PhantomJS. The import wizard generates the required code for either multi or single session GUI-level testing.

Mobile web and native application testing

Silk Performer provides extensive support for mobile web and native applications, with profiles for all popular mobile devices, application types and connection speeds. Record browser based or native applications on mobile devices or emulators. Anticipate the true user experience with performance testing that simulates realistic scenarios across multiple devices, network bandwidths, and geographic location combinations at scale.

  • Easily record test scripts from a PC, an emulator or a mobile device
  • Record and simulate a variety of mobile browsers on Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry
  • Simulate latency, packet drops, and mobile bandwidth speeds such as GPRS, 3G, and 4G
  • Model network connections for phone standards like GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, HSPA+, and LTE
Rich reporting and analysis

Powerful diagnostics and trending reports quickly detect, isolate and resolve the root cause of performance problems. Analyze application behavior and view detailed response timer statistics to detect performance issues before your application goes live. Comprehensive trend reporting monitors user experience after applications are in production.

  • Customize scripts with session-dependent data to simulate real world user behavior
  • Pinpoint bottlenecks at the client-side web page component and network level
  • Monitor server statistics and automatically correlate data with load test results
  • Identify potential code optimizations such as compression, caching, and redirect minimization for web applications
  • Understand errors from the user’s perspective, such as incorrect response, missed timer threshold, or system error
Network emulation

Silk Performer accurately simulates a variety of wired, wireless and mobile network technologies. Measure the impact of different network conditions like poor antenna signal, high latency on long distance connections, and reduced transfer rates. Use Silk Performer to calculate packet drop rate and latency, and develop mobile bandwidth profiles for phone standards like 3G, HSPA+ and LTE.

Unlimited scalability from the Cloud

Silk Performer quickly simulates any size peak-loads from multiple geographies without the need to invest in costly load testing hardware and setup. Simulate any size peak-load from the Cloud for your non-web enterprise applications including SAPGUI, Oracle, and Citrix. Use the built-in VPN to securely test applications behind a firewall.

Try Silk Performer CloudBurst for free to discover how to improve your load and performance testing. Register now for 200 free credits. Learn more about Silk Performer CloudBurst Credit licensing.

Easily test your applications across a variety of platforms

Ensure that your applications can perform across various mobile devices with mobile performance testing. Silk Performer fully supports performance testing for mobile web and native applications. Profiles for all popular mobile devices, application types, and connection speeds are featured in Silk Performer. Performance test mobile applications on a variety of mobile phones and network speeds, including Android, iOS, BlackBerry, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA+, and LTE.

Silk Performer mobile testing also features:

  • Recording mobile browsers: Record native applications on mobile devices to directly and accurately record traffic from a smartphone. Silk Performer provides free choice for recording mobile scenarios without physical devices for replaying simulations.
  • Mobile bandwidth simulation: Understand your end users’ experiences whether users access your applications on fast or slow connections. Simulate mobile network connections with pre-defined profiles for phone standards like GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, HSPA+, and LTE.
  • Load simulation in the cloud: Simulate massive traffic of mobile devices from global locations. Understand global differences in response times, latency, and impact on existing applications to ensure exceptional user experience without costly setup and hardware.
Silk Performer supports Enterprise applications

Silk Performer supports the following Enterprise applications:

  • Citrix: Integration with Citrix provides unique end user-focused Citrix support. Non-intrusive optical character recognition is used to capture and validate objects on screen while visual replay shows exactly what happened when a failure occurred.
  • SAP: Certified integration with SAP NetWeaver enables you to assess the performance of your systems and detect performance issues quickly and easily. Enable SAP to perform at the level needed for your business.
  • Oracle: Silk Performer ensures that your Oracle enterprise applications are still scalable, reliable, and can perform. Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, or applications built on Oracle Forms and Oracle ADF are all supported.
  • BMC Remedy: Silk Performer provides comprehensive testing coverage for all aspects of your BMC Remedy web environment. Support for Remedy BackChannel API ensures that tests are accurate, repeatable, and quick to implement.
  • Mainframe: Quickly resolve performance issues by simulating thousands of 'green screen' or terminal application users. Supported terminal applications include VT100, VT200 (UNIX, IBM, AS400), and IBM mainframes accessed via TN3270(E) and TN5250.