For a messaging app with millions of users, the existing load test tools do not provide a generic interface to mimic all real-time scenarios.HikeRunner is our solution to meet our needs. Unlike other tools, it stresses the backend/DBs/Caches both vertically & horizontally, supporting any protocol.

This paper proposes an in-house Load Testing tool, “HikeRunner,” as a solution to mock real user scenarios while load testing various hike services for different protocols. It introduces a framework, HikeRunner that satisfies our need to simulate real-time user journeys at Hike with desired load as part of the CI pipeline.

The motivation for this tool is to incorporate various real-time user scenarios based on Analytics Systems and stress all the backend systems (DB’s, Caches, queues, etc). It's designed and developed with the aim to simulate user journey over a hike and distributing high load over each server component based on the given probability for each action performed by the end user. Moreover, to find the threshold point at which the backend systems start degrading, latencies of various services, DBs, and cache performance.

This paper illustrates:

● How we started with a load test tool at Hike.

● How HikeRunner solved our problem of load testing supporting various protocols(MQTT, HTTP).

● Architecture design pattern: how various modules work coherently.

● Static hooking of tasks for vertical load testing.

● CI/CD load suite execution: Integration with Jenkins and Git hooks

● Summary and Future scope of the tool.