Load testing scaled with Docker containers

Challenge

A cybersecurity product needed load testing under realistic multi-user pressure, and the team needed reproducible test environments across several platforms without building a provisioning system from nothing.

Approach

Load testing was led with shell scripts that scale simulated user load by adding Docker containers. Test environments were built with VirtualBox, VMware, Docker, and AWS VMs running CentOS and Rocky Linux, and an existing advanced OpenStack-based system was used to provision test environments. Robot Framework tests were extended with new cases and Python keywords alongside manual testing of new security features.

Outcome

Repeatable load runs at any target user count by scaling container numbers, on environments that can be rebuilt on demand across local virtualization, cloud VMs, and OpenStack.

Article author: Andrei Olegovich