Simple vs Fixed Strategy

PeterKlim wrote:

SIMPLE: When starting the Load test run, each of the 40 users start at the same time. Each does 1 request. Only after all 40 request return a response will each of the 40 users submits another respononse - this gets repeated until all 400 XMLs get submited. If I have the limit set to more than 1 Run Per Thread, the 2nd Run will start after all 400 XMLs responses return. The 2nd run will repeat everything in the 1st run. The Test Delay is the delay between each Run.

In Simple strategy, it runs the number of threads with the specified delay between each thread execution until the limit is reached or the execution is cancelled. So, all threads don't start at the same time.
For example: if you have 40 threads, with Test Delay: 10000, Random: 0.5, Limit: 1 Run per Thread - this means that it will run 40 times (each thread once) with 5-10 seconds delay between each thread execution. If you want to run it 400 times then either you need to change the threads to 400 OR change the limit to 10 Runs per Thread.

PeterKlim wrote:

FIXED-RATE: I have no idea other than knowing that it will not wait for the request to come back before submitting again. But where is this "wait" they are talking about? Is it the wait between the "Runs per Thread" or the wait between each of the 40 threads submiting within the 400 XMLS (between the 1st 40 XMLs and 41-80 and 81-120 and so on)? And what is the "Rate" edit field for? If I set it to 10, does that mean only 10 requests are being submitted per second? Or only 10 Threads at a time (users) per second? If I do not use the "Request level" checkbox, what happens? The website state it is on the request level, not the test case level - what is the difference?

In case of Fixed rate, there will be fixed number (specified as Rate) of threads running every second, the total number of running threads might be anything between Rate and Max Threads. There is no "wait" in this case. Rate is the number of threads you want to run every second.
In general, each thread is applied on test case level, If you want that the fixed number of threads should apply to only Request test steps (in test cases) and not to the test case then you can enable/check "Request level" check box. This way the fixed number of threads will be maintained for the request test steps and not for the test cases.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Prakash
SmartBear Sweden