If you are writing new .NET applications and XML Web services or converting your current Web applications to .NET there are a few things you will want to know about your new Web application. How will your Web application perform with the expected number of users? What is the maximum number of users the Web application can support? How well does the Web application scale? How many users will get tired of waiting and leave your site under a certain load?

The .NET environment offers many different methods that can be used in accomplishing your Web application´s purpose. An incorrect decision in technologies used to build your Web application, that is not discovered until the application is finished, can be very costly. How do you decide which technologies to use in your Web application that will allow it to efficiently accomplish its purpose.

Testing your .NET Web application just got easier with ANTS the Advanced .NET Testing System from Red Gate Software. With ANTS you can quickly and easily test your new Web application and the results will answer all of the above questions and more. Testing can even be performed at the prototype level to catch any problems with the chosen technology.

Next enter the name of the server that you want to have performance counters set up on. Use the default "." for localhost. Click on the "Next" button.

The last step is to check the "I would like to run the project ANTS created immediately" box and click on the "Finish" button. This will start the test.

By default ANTS creates a test simulating 5 virtual clients that will run for one minute. While the test is running you can view the performance counters. A popup message box will let you know that the test has completed successful. Click OK to close the message box and then click the "Close" button. That is all it takes to run a simple test on a web site with ANTS. Of course ANTS offers many more powerful testing options, this gives you an idea of how easy it easy to test your web application.

When the test is complete ANTS creates an HTML report that is separated into six sections:

1. The overview gives you a quick easy look at the scalability of your web site by giving you two numbers. The frustration coefficient indicates how frustrated visitors of your web site will be by download times. The abandonment prediction gives you an idea of the number and percentage of users who will be so frustrated with your web site that they will leave.
2. Summary Information By Page: This section shows the average time for each web page to load and can help you find the fastest and slowest pages in your web site.
3. Summary Information By Script Duration: This section shows how long on average scripts are taking to run.
4. Summary Information By Object: This section shows you the average time for individual items to load.
5. Summary Information By Metric: This section shows you the average time for web pages and individual items to load.
6. Performance Counter Information: This section how shows how the performance counters behaved during the test.

The ANTS report gives you a quick overview of how your site performed and also generates specific information about which parts of your site are going to perform well and which parts need improvement before going live. The report is very comprehensive and gives enough detailed information to answer the questions mentioned at the begining of this review.

New in Version 1.5

The addition of the frustration coefficient and abandonment prediction give you a quick and easy to understand the scalability of your web application. Other improvements include support for recording https, custom classes in web services, HTTP 1.1 and improved performance on multi-processor client machines

An Easy Way To Test Your .NET Web Applications

ANTS lives up to its name as the Advanced .NET Testing System. ANTS is very easy to configure and use in testing your web applications and will save time at every stage of development. This article demonstrated how quick and easy ANTS can run a test on a web application right out of the box. ANTS includes many advanced features not covered here that will be of great value to developers building Web applications with .NET.

The best way to determine if ANTS will work for your development needs is to download a trial version from Red Gate Software. I believe you will find that it will save you many hours of development and testing time.