URL vs HTML recording mode
There are three types of recording mode/levels in LoadRunner. GUI-based, HTML based and URL based. For the uninitiated, recording levels tells you the amount of and what information is recorded during the recording process. As the title says, for this post we will keep focus on HTML based and URL based recording levels only and will touch upon GUI based mode, in a later post.
- HTML based mode, records script for every user action that is performed during recording (hmmm…sounds like QTP) while URL based mode records each and every browser request to the server and resources received from the server. Confused? ok, HTML based mode does recording as you perform clicks and doesn’t give you inside information like what is happening behind the recording while URL based mode records each and every step and emulate Javascript code.
- From the point1) above you can guess, HTML mode would have less correlation to do while URL mode has much more complex correlation requirements.
- HTML mode is smaller and is more intuitive to read as the statements are inside the functions corresponding to the user action performed. In the case of URL based, all statements gets recorded into web_url()
- HTML mode is recommended for browser applications while URL mode is recommended for non-browser applications.
- Lastly, don’t get the impression that I am advocating for HTML mode
. URL mode can be of real help when you want to have control over the resources that need to be or need not to be downloaded, since you have each and every statement in-front of you (point 1)
What is the difference between a process and a thread?
Process is defined as the virtual address space and the control information necessary for the execution of a program while Threads are a way for a program to split itself into two or more simultaneously running tasks. In general, a thread is contained inside a process and different threads in the same process share some resources while different processes do not.
In terms of Loadrunner, when we run Vuser as a process, LoadRunner creates 1 process called mmdrv.exe per Vuser. So if we have 10 Vusers, we will have 10 mmdrv.exe processes on our machines.
while when we run Vuser as a thread, LoadRunner creates 1 thread per Vuser. So if we have 10 Vusers, then we will have 1 process with 10 threads running inside it if the limit is 10 threads per process.
Running Vuser as a thread is more memory efficient that running Vuser as a process for obvious reasons that less memory resources are utilized when we run them as thread. I read somewhere that running as a process has an advantage that system becomes more stable. Now how is that stability achieved? I am not sure…Can someone clarify this point to me?
Note that while running Java Virtual User, JVM’s are loaded per process and will follow the same principle above.
Related: What is RAM, Memory Usage, CPU Usage, Paging in terms of LoadRunner?
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