Ajax TruClient, scope of use and limitations?

Question

Just got LR 11 Vugen licence and tried TruClient, looks great and the firefox based script recording works really nice. However, I have not found answers to the following:
1)Is TruClient running limited the same way as QuickTest Pro virtual users scripts (1 user per OS)?
2)It is called Ajax TruClient, does it mean it supports only javascript based web pages or all (standard php/html) including javascript etc.?

Answer 1

Here are a few answers for ya:

1) TruClient is not limited like a GUI Vuser (WinRunner or now QTP) to a single GUI session on a Load Generator. You can run multiple AJAX TruClient Virtual Users on a single Load Generator and they will run "invisibly" like a virtual user. You might find that the driver is much heavier (takes more memory and CPU), so you can't run as many vusers as the Web HTTP/HTML vuser.

2) TruClient is not just for AJAX-based web pages - it can work on any web page that will render in a browser.

Answer 2

In addition to what Mark said, it's purely event driven, i.e. if a user clicks on a link, this is what gets rendered, consumed as a resource and subsequently displayed, as opposed to traditional headless implementations, which are, however in return, using less system resources.

This is one of the main caveats with TruClient (from experience): depending on the complexity of your script or workflow, single user simulated can take lots of resources, mainly memory, in my case. This is because for every Virtual user that gets emulated, an instance of Gecko Web Engine is being spawned, in order to replay the script, and this has its cost.

However, the level of realism reaches very close to typical user session and experience, as you can, for example, set the typewriting speed, decide whether to simulate caching mechanisms or not, make additional corrections of pattern and images recognition, etc.

Overall, mostly positive experience, which has, however, certain price. Talk to your HP sales (disclaimer: A company which I don't work for, just experience).

Answer 3

A little more ...

TC is a big win in some respects as you can avoid a ton of nasty correlation. But it also has some downsides, the memory/CPU footprint can be huge, and the sync issues can be tricky.