Run performance tests against App Services in Azure

Are you using external cloud based load testing solutions for simulate load for your web application? There are several out there, like blitz.io, loader.io or loadimpact.com and more.

For a while now you have been able to do load testing for your Azure hosted applications from Visual Studio Online. What you might not know is that you can actually load test your apps (or external URL) directly from the Azure portal. It is not an independent resource you can create. You add the "tool" under your web app pane panel.

So create a new Web app or go to one you already have deployed. Right click anywhere at the tiles section and choose Add tiles:

Choose Operations and Performance Test, Drag it to the tile pane.

Now you should have the Performance Test tile visible on your web app.

Hit the tile and choose New:

Here is something interesting. You can actually test an URL outside of the app and Azure. You can point it to what ever URL you want, without validation of some sort. Nice but scary (DDoS anyone?).

The load testing tool within Visual Studio Online has more feature for stress testing than this one. What you got here is pretty much what the image below shows. Concurrent users and the time the test will run is pretty much it. Maximum is 20000 concurrent users for 60 minutes. And that will absolutely kill your site :)

Hit Run test. The test will probably be queued for a couple of minutes before it starts.

When the test starts, you can watch the progress in realtime.

A quick walk through of the awesome and free (yes it is free!) load testing tool in Azure.