Web Performance, Inc. Helps Massage Envy Scale for the Holiday Season

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2 April 2009
Tags: services
Posted in Case Studies, WP Load Tester

Load testing quickly locates source of CPU overload, providing maximum capacity for busy holiday season on schedule to maximum capacity.

Durham, NC – March 23, 2009 – As Massage Envy prepared for a record of online gift card sales its agency, The Lavidge Company, worked with Web Performance, Inc. (WPI) to load test the environment so it could meet demand. Web Performance worked with the agency and found ways of increasing the number of concurrent users each Web server could handle allowing each server to handle 4x more traffic.

Using its Web Performance Load Tester application, WPI began systematically testing various components of the system, quickly locating a key section of code that wasn’t scaling properly.

“Without performing a load test, Massage Envy wouldn’t have seen this problem until its busiest day right in the middle of holiday sales,” says Matt Drew, Performance Engineer with Web Performance, Inc. “Problems like this are completely unnoticeable until a system is under load. Normally, problems like these can take forever to find. But our process uncovers these bottlenecks very quickly.”

WPI developed and ran three custom test cases to simulate browsing and search functions on various paths through the site, retesting the site and improving capacity each time code was revised. The Massage Envy website (www.massageenvy.com) can now support its target concurrent users, and can scale as needed with additional Web servers based on demand. The testing process was able to insure a smooth customer experience and save significant capital expense by maximizing hardware already in place.