Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

GoReplay and Speedscale are two popular tools commonly used for load testing. Both share traffic shadowing as a core feature. This article compares both tools against the following criteria: For more Kubernetes load testing comparisons, check out our other posts.

As developers, one of the most important things we can consider when designing and building applications is the ability to know if our application is running in an ideal operating condition, or said another way: the ability to know whether or not your application is healthy. This is particularly important when deploying your application to Kubernetes. Kubernetes has the concept of container probes that, when used, can help ensure the health and availability of your application.

At some point, your development team may be considering implementing load testing (also known as stress testing) as part of your software testing process. Load testing validates that your web app is able to withstand a large number of simultaneous users, decreasing the chance that any traffic spikes will bring down your services once deployed. These stress tests can be highly granular, giving you the opportunity to test run virtually unlimited strategies before they are set into the wild.

Transactions-per-Second (TPS) is a valuable metric for evaluating system performance and is particularly relevant for engineers overseeing Kubernetes environments.TPS, alongside average response time, provides critical insights into system performance during load testing. This post covers two approaches to calculating TPS; a manual approach applicable in all environments, and an automatic Kubernetes-specific solution using production traffic replication.

Developing highly resilient Kubernetes deployments is crucial for ensuring that your hosted applications in Kubernetes can effectively manage and recover from disruptions. This capability is vital in order to maintain continuous availability for your customers. The importance of resilience in your distributed system also escalates depending on your customer base and the critical nature of your application. Even brief periods of downtime can have a significant negative impact on your business.

For the last 10+ years, Docker has been one of the leading technology tools for helping developers build, run, update, and manage containers. It is one of the most widely used containerization tools available, able to work with Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS, and all of the leading cloud service providers. With over 20 million monthly users, you’ve likely used Docker before, whether for your own projects or as part of a larger team.

Kubernetes has transformed how developers build, test, and deploy applications, providing a consistent platform for managing containerized workloads. Setting up efficient Kubernetes clusters is crucial for streamlining the development process, reducing time-to-market, and ensuring that applications run reliably from development to production.