System and methods for load testing a transactional server over a wide area network

A method of providing load testing services to each of a plurality of business entities that operate transactional servers, the method comprising:

• providing a web site through which the business entities upload data regarding specific transactional servers to be load tested;
• generating load tests for each of the transactional servers using data uploaded by the corresponding business entities;
• running each of the load tests from a server farm that is located remotely from the corresponding transactional server, such that request messages and responses thereto are passed between the server farm and each of the transactional servers over a wide area network;
• storing performance data resulting from running the load tests in a database, said performance data indicative, for each transactional server, of how the transactional servers responds under load conditions;
• and
• providing web-based access to the performance data over the wide area network to allow said business entities to evaluate results of load test runs;
• whereby computing resources used to conduct load tests are shared by the plurality of business entities, and the transactional servers of such business entities are load tested without a need for the business entities to set up load testing servers.

A method of load testing a web site, the method comprising:

• providing a staged implementation of the web site that is remotely accessible via the Internet;
• running a load test against the staged implementation of the web site from a server farm that is remote from the web site and coupled to the web site by the Internet, wherein running the load test comprises ramping up a load applied to the staged implementation of the web site over time;
• and
• providing web-based access to performance data measurements taken during running of the load test to permit users to remotely analyze results of the load test.